


then i arose

by jonphaedrus



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Assisted Suicide, Child Death, Disabled Character, Eye Trauma, Forgiveness, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Miscarriage, Next Generation, Pregnancy, Self-Indulgent, Slice of Life, Suicide, Trans Male Character, babies ever after, no betas we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-03-21 20:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13748721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: “Please,” Zelgius says softly. But Ike—Ike says:“No.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [(the birdsong) (the distant sky)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5441999) by [jonphaedrus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus). 
  * Inspired by [border lines](https://archiveofourown.org/works/997789) by [jonphaedrus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus). 



> happy rare tellius week! its day 3. also this is self-indulgent drivel and a followup to a couple of previous fics, filling in the world ideas of those everyone lives/nobody dies aus.
> 
> shaking tellius. zelgius lives forever. FOREVER.

Ike sees the opening, and takes it for what it is, and Ragnell shears Zelgius’ right arm off just below the elbow. Alondite falls along with it to the ground, the sword clattering against the cold flagstone floor. He does not scream. He barely even grimaces. Instead, Zelgius gasps softly in pain, pressing the fingers of his left hand to the stump to stem the blood.

He falls to his knees a moment later, rocking with the force of it. His head is bowed. “Impressive,” Zelgius laughs. “Most impressive. You are much stronger than before.”

“I have you to thank for that,” Ike tells him, and Zelgius’ smile is a painful one. Ike’s further explanation is simple, of course. He has trained for three years to be as good as Zelgius. Someday, he might even manage it. But Zelgius has lived with Sephiran for nearly twenty years.

He has learned to lie. Perhaps not as well as Sephiran. But well.

“Thanks to you,” he says to Ike, a truth befitting the fiction that he lives, “I was able to fight my master at the height of his glory days.” And maybe he was, in the end. Maybe his memories of Gawain the way he was have been dulled. Maybe Zelgius himself has surpassed him. It is hard to know these things. Nobody will ever be certain, because Gawain is dead.

The room is silent. All those who came with him, good soldiers loyal and true, who had pledged themselves even when they had learned the truth of what he and Sephiran had meant to do, are now fallen dead. Even Levail—dear, kind-hearted Levail—lays silent. A corpse. Except for Zelgius, gasping, holding the bleeding stump of his sword arm, eyes wide in shock.

The wall of light that had stood to separate Ike, for the boy’s coveted duel, drops. His sister races to his side, followed by their tactician, Almedha’s son. Soren, wasn’t it? Micaiah and Sanaki follow after, and then the red-headed paladin—Titania, was that her name?—and Tanith and Sigrun. Ike is gasping with exertion. Mist touches his chest and side, bloody from Zelgius’ strikes, and heals them. Nobody speaks. Ragnell’s point is to the floor, but it is unwavering.

Zelgius bows his head. “If you would,” he says, softly. “Finish what it is that you started, Ike.” The boy has grown strong. In another ten years, maybe fifteen, he will be Gawain’s equal as he was in life. Now, though, hate and joy and studied practice from two dead teachers is not enough skill to teach Ike all the things that Zelgius has learned in nearly a century of life. Ike just does not have the precision.

But he certainly had enough to disarm Zelgius, and that is what matters, that is what counts.

“I do not wish to bleed to death, although it may be selfish of me to ask such a boon.” He stares at the floor, at Ragnell’s point, red and slick with his blood. His blood has always been the same red as a beorc’s. It has always felt strange to him.

“If you won’t,” Soren says to Ike, “I will.”

“Ike, please. We need to hurry. I don’t know what’s happening up there, but Yune says its bad.” Micaiah. A good woman; Zelgius wonders if Sephiran is certain in her identity yet. He is, but has not said as much to his master. He knows better than to give Sephiran truly false hope. Still, nobody moves, and Zelgius stares at his arm, bleeding sluggishly now that the first gush is over. He feels light-headed. He won’t last long, even putting pressure on it like this.

“It’s better this way,” Sanaki says, with a quiet finality. Zelgius closes his eyes.

“Please,” Zelgius says softly. But Ike—Ike says:

“No.”

Zelgius looks up at him, at the young man holding Ragnell, dripping red. Ike uses the back of his free hand to wipe blood from a nick on his forehead. He shakes his head. “In combat, fine. If Ragnell had pierced your heart I could care less. But I won’t kill an unarmed man. Will you join us?” He asks, cocking his head slightly to the side, shaking the blood off of Ragnell and sheathing it. Zelgius bites back the stinging reprimand on his lips and tongue; he has no right to lecture this boy on caring for his blade. He’ll draw it again soon enough. “To stop Ashera.”

“If that is the cost of my life, then I must,” Zelgius bows his head. “I know not of what help I will be to you, now—“

“Heal him,” Ike says to Micaiah. Short. Clipped. “Then let’s go.”

It’s only after Ike has rushed away that Tanith comes over and slaps Zelgius across the face, hard and open palmed, and drags his head back by his hair, making him gasp, seeing stars. He wavers, his balance ruined by his arm and blood loss. “You son of a bitch,” Tanith snarls. “I’ll fucking finish you myself—“

Sigrun grabs her hand. “Stop.” She says. “Let him be tried by Begnion law when all is done. There’s jurisprudence in this case. Treason has but one punishment.”

“Believe me,” he tells them, softly. “I look forward to it.”

They go on, leaving him with Micaiah and Sanaki. Ike’s companions have already begun to move on, following their general. The rest of their number go along, and Micaiah leaves as soon as she’s done healing his arm, holding her head as she races ahead to join Ike, mumbling something about memories, and Sanaki and Zelgius are alone, Zelgius kneeling at her feet as she rips off a part of her robes and fashions him a sling, ties his missing arm up, and hands him Alondite, helps him sheathe it one-handed, although of what little use it will be to him here now he does not know.

“I pardon you,” Sanaki says, so nobody but him can hear it. He bows his head to her, looks up, catches her eyes. She is crying. “I pardon you. Just. Leave Begnion, after. I—“

“It’s all right,” Zelgius tells her, softly. “I understand. I know.”

He catches her when she hugs him, and lets her cry until they must go on, lest they miss the rest of those in the tower, and afterward he pretends he has not seen it.

 

 

Zelgius fells Dheginsea himself, with the single-minded force of a man on a mission, and does not look at Kurthnaga afterward. He knows he has just done horror to the boy, but what’s another dead father at his hands, when all is said and done?

 

 

The door at the top of the tower is locked. Zelgius expected it. “The doors cannot be opened,” Sephiran says, and Zelgius is the last to turn to look at him. They parted mere hours ago; he has not changed in that time. But there is some finality about him, as if he has accepted his fate. “They have been sealed with powerful magic.”

“Sephiran!” Sanaki cries, rushing to his side. “You’re all right! I’m so relieved to see you!”

Sephiran bows his head to her. “I’m sorry to have been a cause for concern, Apostle. Forgive me.” Zelgius finally moves, uprooting his feet from the floor. He steps between Ike’s companions, who make room for him without question, getting out of his way. It is not merely distrust; it is raw hate.

“Sephiran,” Sanaki continues, “There’s something I need to tell you. I’m...not a true Apostle. I didn’t mean to abuse your trust.” She sounds genuinely contrite, as if an accident of birth and fate is her fault.

“I’ve known that for some time, Sanaki.” Sephiran smiles at her. His sad smile. “Don’t forget that I was almost a father to you, my dear. It has honestly never made any difference to me whether you can or cannot hear the goddess.” Sephiran cannot himself, either, any more. Sanaki sniffs, and Sephiran accepts her hug. Whatever she says is muffled and Zelgius cannot hear as he steps to Ike’s side.

“Zelgius,” Sephiran says. Zelgius bows his head. “Your arm,” he says, sharply. “What—“

“Zelgius was the Black Knight,” Sanaki says, quickly. “I know you didn’t—“

“That’s not news to him,” Ike snaps. Sanaki goes quiet. Zelgius cannot hide his smile. Ike is smarter than he lets on.

“Ike?” Sanaki turns around, pulling away from Sephiran at last. “What are you saying?”

“I mean a man like you could never serve conflicting interests, could you? You could only ever obey one master. Isn’t that right?” Ike looks dead on at Zelgius, and Zelgius bows his head.

“I am guilty as charged.”

“Precisely.” Sephiran folds his narrow-fingered hands before him. “I felt it important to observe King Ashnard carefully. At the time I sent Zelgius to his court, it was relatively easy to get an outsider close to the king. After all,” Sephiran half-smiles, self-deprecating, “Ashnard was famous for employing powerful men with no regard for their background or social status.”

“Zelgius’ bladework certainly was fine enough for the position,” Ike says, and Zelgius sees no need to deny it.

“ _Was_ _,_ ” he agrees, succinctly.

“Was my father’s death your plan,” Ike asks Zelgius, and then turns to Sephiran. “Or yours? Or Ashnard’s? Zelgius tried to take the medallion, and my father died.” Sanaki looks indignant. “Did you,” Ike says, teeth grit, “Order my father killed?”

“Someone,” Sanaki pleads, “Explain—“

“Sephiran ordered me to take the medallion and deliver it to Ashnard,” Zelgius says, interrupting them. “Ike, Gawain’s death had nothing to do with Ashnard or Sephiran. That was my own doing, and no-one else’s. I had not thought I would win that fight.” He had not thought Gawain able to lose, in troth. But it had been a long time. The man he remembered from his time in Daein...was not the man he had met in battle.

But Gawain’s death is one he feels very little remorse for. Gawain had to die. Gawain would have stopped Ashnard, and that would have stopped Sephiran.

“Yes,” Sephiran says softly. “The Fire Emblem had to be given to Ashnard, so the goddess could be freed, and all living creatures destroyed.” Zelgius watches Ike’s face, as the dawning realization sets in. As Sephiran’s plan, refined over a generation’s lifetimes, comes into sharp focus. As Ike’s companions realize just what Sephiran has wrought. At the end, when Sanaki has backed away from Sehiran, shaking with rage, Sephiran drops his head. He cannot look at her.

He always did love her.

“So you were the one pulling the strings all along,” Ike finally states. It’s not a question. Sephiran nods. “Besides Empress Sanaki, the entirety of Begnion trusted you. _Tellius_ trusted you.” Of course; _Ike_ trusted him too. Ike’s hands are fists. “Sephiran, I need to understand—did you really betray all those people?”

“I did.”

Sephiran does not even sound contrite.

“I don’t get it. Why would you wake the goddess to pass judgment on us? How _could_ you want that?”

Sephiran’s laugh is ugly and hysterical. “It wouldn’t make any difference if I told you!” He throws his head back and _howls_ his laughter _,_ shaking with it. “You would have to live centuries before you could understand!”

“Why did you do this?” Ike snarls, and Zelgius shakes his head.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Zelgius says, his voice joining with Sephiran’s, as Zelgius crosses the floor to join him, looks back at Ike, whose eyes blaze. “Even I hardly do. Even Dheginsea did not, not truly.”

“Then I’ll make you _both_ talk,” Ike says, and the ring of him drawing Ragnell is loud in the silence. “Zelgius, I will—“

“I won’t fight you!” Sanaki screams. Sigrun rushes to her side, grabs her arm, tries to pull her back, and Sanaki shakes her off. “Sephiran, I won’t, I _can’t_ —“

“You have no choice but to fight,” Sephiran says, and it is the most pitying thing Zelgius has ever heard him speak. “The doors to Ashera are sealed by my magic. Killing me is your only way through.” Sephiran turns and draws Alondite for Zelgius, sets the blade in his left hand, and Zelgius hefts it, turning it. It’s been some time since he truly fought left-handed, but he’s not as rusty as he pretends to be.

And then there’s footsteps, and Micaiah’s body comes forward. “So it was you,” Yune’s voice says from her mouth. Sephiran stills beside Zelgius, and Zelgius wishes he could grasp the other man’s shoulder, steady him. “Since we entered this place, I’ve seen what you’ve been thinking. You’re projecting it all over the place. Just because _you_ can’t hear _me_ doesn’t mean that _I_ can’t hear _you_. Give it up, Lehran.”

The silence is so fine that you could hear a pin drop. Reyson swears. Leanne gasps. Rafiel shakes his head, and Nasir closes his eyes; of course, Nasir has always known. Kurthnaga looks genuinely stricken. “Goddess Yune.” Sephiran closes his eyes, his forehead creases in pain. “Yune, why do you insist on calling me by that name? I discarded it long ago. I’ve changed, Yune. All I want now is…” Sephiran trails off. “I just want it all to end,” he says, voice soft. “Please, Yune. Please, don’t stop me.”

“Lehran...” Yune’s voice is soft, and Zelgius wants to cry out to her that making a man live lifetimes beyond lifetimes that he cannot possibly endure alone is nothing but torture. If she had wanted him to serve her faithfully, she should have never—

“You’re running out of time,” Sephiran says, drawing Creiddylad. “At this rate, Ashera may finish off Tellius before you meet her. Now that you all know who brought you here and why, I suppose that leaves our fight to the death to take care of.” Sephiran looks to Zelgius. “May I count you on my side, my General?”

Zelgius bows his head, and sheathes Alondite again. “I’m sorry,” he tells Sephiran, pulls the other man into his arms, and gently, before Sephiran can stop him, grabs him by the neck, twists, and snaps. The crunch is loud, and Sanaki screams when Sephiran crumples in his arms, Zelgius stooping to catch him before he falls, kneeling with him to the floor, laying his lolling head down. Sanaki races to his side, tears streaming down her face.

“Zelgius!” She screams, and he raises his remaining hand.

“Be still, child,” he tells her. “Please. He’ll be all right.” Zelgius looks to Ike, and then unbuckles Alondite’s sheath. “Take it,” he tells Ike, and kicks the blade across the floor. “Give it to whoever can wield it; I’ll be of no help in the battle to come. The doors will remain open only a short while. Sephiran will recover,” he tells this to Sanaki. “He has done this before.”

“You can’t—he’s _dead!_ ” She shrieks.

“Empress,” Nasir comes over, trailed by Kurthnaga and Gareth. “He’s telling the truth.” Yune, her face tight, nods. “Sephiran has tried many times to kill himself.”

“I remember now,” Kurthnaga says, softly. “He was always fleeting, when I was a child. Sick. In and out of bed.”

“He came to Serenes, often,” Rafiel explains as well. “To heal. He had to.”

“It’s because of me,” Yune says, her voice cracking. “Me and Ashera. He can’t die. He’s—our chosen. Even now he can’t hear us. He can’t die until we’re whole. Until we say so. He’ll wake up, soon.”

“Is this all true?” Ike asks, he looks straight at Zelgius, who laughs, shakes his head.

“Do you think, knowing what you do of me, I would betray him?” He asks of Ike, who does not refute him. “Go, Ike. Quickly. I will remain here. When Sephiran recovers, we will join you. If that is what he wishes. If not, we’ll be gone ere you return.”

“Do as he says,” Ike snaps, and his companions follow him, leaving Yune with Zelgius. She comes to his side and bends over Sephiran on the floor, touches his chest. “We did something terrible to him,” she says, and then, suddenly, bends, sways. “Oh,” Micaiah’s voice says. “Ike—“ she stands, and runs, yelling, “Ike!”

Another memory, then.

Zelgius sits in the silence with Sephiran, lolling broken and dead in his arms, and waits for him to awaken. The doors close, and they are alone, the only living left this side of the gate, until Sephiran eventually, softly, stirs. He opens his eyes, and looks up at Zelgius, dazed.

“Why?” He asks, and Zelgius shakes his head.

“I’m selfish,” he says at last, voice very small. “And I could not—I cannot,” he closes his eyes, lets Sephiran wrap his arms around his neck, “I could not bear to live in a world that continued on without you.”

“Oh, Zelgius,” Sephiran tells him, and Zelgius holds him tight, buries his face in Sephiran’s hair, and breathes. “Are they waiting?” Sephiran asks, after a time. “For us?”

“If you wish it. If not, we can go. No-one will follow.” Sephiran gets unsteadily to his feet, pulls Zelgius up. He takes his staff from where it fell, and turns it in his hands, looks toward Zelgius, takes a deep breath.

“Perhaps,” he admits, softly, “It’s time I tried again.”

And they might walk holding one another up, but they walk forward, to the door, together. Sephiran stays behind—and Lehran steps through.

 

 

They leave Begnion, even if Sanaki does ask them to stay, in the end. Lehran wants to go back to Serenes, to go _home_ , and Zelgius goes where Lehran wants to go. He builds them a cottage of wood and stone, nestled in the forest near Ashunera’s altar, since Lehran cannot nest in the trees. Over the years his wings slowly heal, since this much at least the magic of Serenes can do, and his eyes stop being haunted and hollow.

They see those who come to see them. Often it is just the many Laguz of the bird tribes—Leanne and Reyson most often, and Lorazieh sometimes—but less often they see others from Ike’s company. Kurthnaga writes frequent letters. They attend the naming ceremony of Ena and Rajaion’s son, the heir to the throne of Goldoa, should Kurthnaga die, and occasionally, they return to Sienne. They go to Daein for Micaiah’s wedding, and Sienne for Sanaki’s. They help Stefan begin to build his city for the Branded, all the personal fortune they had both amassed in Begnion liquidated and given to him in stead.

And after twenty years, Ike and Soren arrive in Serenes.

 

 

“Well,” Zelgius says, coming out of Leanne’s house in the trees and leaning over the edge of the branches to gauge his drop before he grabs the nearest branch, swings, and falls to land on the ground, some ten feet below, dusting himself off as he stands. “I didn’t expect to see you two here.” Ike stares at him, like he’s genuinely stunned to see Zelgius there. Soren looks ready to murder him on sight.

“Where’s Lehran?” Ike asks, after a moment. Zelgius, in the midst of picking up the supplies he he had left on the ground before, nods his chin in the direction of the altar.

“At the house. You’re welcome, if you choose to come.” He half-bows to them. “If not, it was good to see you. Ike,” he pauses, and the man turns to him. Ike isn’t young any more—he’s forty, now, and grey touches his blue hair. His beard is a little ragged. Soren, on the other hand, looks still a few years younger than Zelgius does. “You look a great deal like your father,” Zelgius tells him, before he can stop himself. Ike stares as if struck. “I can see him in you now more than ever.”

He leaves, before he can make a further fool of himself, laden with foodstuffs and books, bound and sent from Goldoa and Sienne for Lehran to read, new medical supplies. Neither of the other men follows him down the winding Serenes trails, not really meant for walking. It’s a forest to fly in, not tromp about on the dirt in. But Zelgius and Lehran do.

He says to Lehran: “Ike and Soren are here. Visiting Reyson, if I had to guess.”

Lehran wraps his arms around his chest, his wings quivering for a moment, and then sighs, shakes. “Well,” he says, taking the books Zelgius offers him, holding them close to his chest, “I suppose it would be nice to see Ike again, before he dies.” Because he will die, of course. Soren will outlive Zelgius, who has aged almost not a day in twenty years aside from three grey hairs that now sit at his right temple, but Ike will die before he sees his second century.

“I invited them,” Zelgius tells him, lifting the bag of rice over the threshold with a soft grunt. “If they come, they come. Leanne says she wants to see you, whenever you’re feeling well enough. She’s found an old galdrar she doesn’t know the tune for, and Lorazieh said you might know it.”

“Probably,” Lehran agrees.

 

 

There’s a knock on the door the next day, and Lehran opens it. “You’ve grown,” he tells Soren. Soren bares his teeth. “You’ll be as tall as your parents in a few more years.”

“Thanks,” Soren says. He’s figured it out, of course. It’s hard not to. “Maybe by then you’ll have kicked it, old man.” Lehran’s smile is self-deprecating.

“I could only but wish,” he agrees, sedately enough. “Perhaps should Lady Ashunera will it, you may in fact see me go before you do.” Lehran turns to Ike, as Zelgius, behind the house, chopping firewood, wipes sweat off of the nape of his neck, tucks the axe under his arm and comes in through the back door. “You look a great deal like your mother,” Lehran tells Ike. “My goodness, but you have Elena’s look about you.”

“It’s strange,” Ike replies to him, searching out Zelgius. “But Zelgius said the same about my father.” Lehran smiles, a little secret thing. “May we come in?”

“Please,” Lehran steps aside, invites them in. “Let me make you some tea.”

 

 

Tea is stilted and quiet. Conversation begins, dies, and lays unburied between the four of them, a cooling corpse that they’ve dumped on the floor. Soren snarls, Ike snaps, Zelgius keeps his counsel quiet and withdrawn, and Lehran goes distant and stiff and still, and answers each question like he has a knife to his throat. At a certain point, as the fire begins to wane, Zelgius stands and goes to get fresh firewood.

He keeps it burning, all year round, because the heat makes Lehran happier. He throws herbs on it because the smoke and the incense of them can relax his pain, ease his mind. The conversation, without Zelgius, stops dead. Nobody speaks. As Zelgius stands back up from bending down to throw the herbs in, Ike says:

“Is that Alondite?”

Zelgius looks up. Alondite, sheathed, is hung above the fireplace, resting on two heavy iron nails that Zelgius made out of his old Begnion General’s armor. He cares for the sword, but does not wear it—baring steel in Serenes is not a crime, but it is looked upon carefully, with sharp eyes. Ashunera has not been sleeping very long, after all. What if battle awoke her?

“Yes,” Zelgius replies, turning back to Ike, who is staring at it. “I don’t have much use for it, now.” Ike wears Ragnell at his side. Currently, the blade has been set by the door. “Why?”

Ike stands, sets down his mug. “Outside,” he says, and Zelgius stares at him, carefully, tilts his head to one side, eyes narrowed as he tries to figure out how to respond, what it is he wants to say. Ike picks up Ragnell by the sheath. Finally, he laughs under his breath and holds up his right arm, shorn off at the elbow, his sleeve stitched closed over the stump by Lehran’s careful, even needlework.

“I think not, Ike. You curtailed that career for me a long time ago.”

“You still have your left hand,” Ike says. Neither of them move, and Zelgius can see how still Lehran and Soren are. “You can’t truly expect me to think that you never learned. My father was always reminding me to train with both, and I can’t think that was only a later teaching practice.” No; Gawain had always firmly believed a swordsman was only as good as how well he could keep using his sword, even when injured.

Zelgius sighs. He goes to the wall, lifts Alondite down, sheath and all, and pulls the blade free. The ringing of the steel is loud in the cottage, and he tucks the sword under his right bicep, keeps the flat of it pressed to his chest, and follows Ike back out the door, sighing, shaking his head. Children never learn. Ike draws Ragnell in the clearing and sets the sheath down, and they both stretch, limbering, squaring up, finding a clear patch of ground.

Lehran and Soren do not follow.

“Ready?” Ike asks, when Zelgius has settled, Alondite’s point pressed into the earth, the hilt leaning into the side of his remaining hand, his elbow balanced against his hip. Zelgius nods, and lets Ike take the first strike.

Twenty breathless minutes later, halfway across Ashunera’s clearing, Ike sits on the mossy ground, gasping, his hand pressed to a bruise on his side, Alondite’s tip hovering against his throat as Zelgius looks down at his bowed head. “Yield,” Ike whispers, staring up at him. “I yield.”

For a moment, perhaps half a heartbeat, Zelgius hesitates, and then he lowers his sword, sticks it back under his arm, and leans over to give Ike a hand up. He balances back out, and then goes to pick up Ragnell from where it fell when Zelgius knocked it from his hands, and stares at Zelgius. “I knew it,” he says at last. “I knew you pulled it.” His voice is sharp, and Zelgius snorts. “At the end, in the tower. You dropped your stance on your right side, gave me an opening. You saw me coming and you _let_ me win.”

There is pain in Ike’s voice. An old, ragged wound, finally laid bare. Now he’s had the chance to, he’s torn the sutures out and checked the infection inside and has found that even after twenty years it’s not abated in the slightest. “You let me win, and pretended I’d bested you.”

“No,” Zelgius says softly and clasps Ike’s shoulder in his remaining hand, squeezes it. “I didn’t let you win. You let me live, and that’s a great deal of difference indeed.” Ike stares at him strangely for a moment, and Zelgius shrugs slightly. “You said it yourself at the time. If I’d fallen in battle, that was one thing. It was another to cut me down unarmed. You stayed your hand out of goodness, Ike.”

“And you’d have that not taste ill to me now?”

“You’re welcome to strike me down, if you still want it.” Zelgius hesitates, lifts his chin. “The call is still yours.”

Neither of them move for a time. Finally, Ike shakes his head. “It won’t bring my father back,” he says, and it’s a bitter tonic, that.

“No,” Zelgius agrees. “It won’t.” He hesitates, pauses. “For what it’s worth, Ike, I’m sorry.” He knows it isn’t worth much, and he goes to the side of the cottage, to the rainwater barrel, and ladles out cups for the both of them, hands Ike’s over and drains his own, sets it down. Zelgius puts one foot up on the bench by the wall, balances Alondite on his knee, and pulls out a cloth to polish the blade down. “The Gawain that lived in my memories, that I still see, is younger than you are now. Even if he hadn’t cut his tendons, when we met again, your father was a man in his fifties, who hadn’t trained with a sword in almost twenty years. I lived with a sword in my hand from the day he met me until the day I lost my hand, and I’m _still_ younger than you are, albeit I’ve lived nearly twice your lifespan.” Zelgius sighs. “Your father was a good man. He deserved better than the end I gave him, and if I’d been less of a fool and thinking clearly, I would have realized that at the time.”

Ike is staring at him silently.

“It really was an accident, wasn’t it.” The other man says it like he can’t quite believe it: that Zelgius, who is probably one of the best living (if not _the_ best living) swordsman, when his only true competition is Stefan and Ike, and he just bested Ike with his off-hand after not training daily in over a decade, could kill a man by accident.

“It was. Although I know that means little or nothing, it was.”

“You being honest means a lot.” Zelgius finally looks up, and finds Ike watching him with his mother’s clear, clear blue eyes. It’s strange, just how he takes after his parents. He looks like his father, but his spirit, is _soul_ , is Elena’s. There is a gentleness to him that Mist has never had. Mist has always been cut from the same cloth as Gawain: when the chips are down, she’s as ruthless as cold hard steel. “Titania doesn’t like to talk about my father, from before my mother died. Could you tell me about him?”

It’s not what Zelgius expected to have come out of Ike’s mouth.

“Of course.”

“Could you show me that thing you did with Alondite’s hilt, too? Flipping it around when you disarmed me?”

“Yes, I can do that too.”

They end up spending nearly two hours in the clearing, Zelgius showing Ike how to use his armor to catch Ragnell when disarmed, hooking the crossbar into plate and chain, bouncing the sharp edge off of his gauntlet to safely be able to grab the hilt again. It was a move that he had learned from Gawain, perfected later in battle. And then they sit, panting and drinking rainwater, and Zelgius tells Ike about Gawain in Daein, when he was young.

Ike and Soren leave before dinner, and make promises, in their own ways, to return, at some point. After they’re gone, Zelgius murmurs, “May I?” and Lehran turns toward him, lips quirked into a smile, lets Zelgius kiss him, fingers cool on the back of his neck.

Forgiveness is strange. He has neither earned nor asked for it, but he finds it, every day, in different ways, a little at a time.


	2. +1 (coming to serenes)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He brought Zelgius.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> missing scene i decided to go back and write. hurk. not betad. not even proofread! not any good. self-indulgent.
> 
> gay.

Tibarn is halfway through a meal he has been _very_ impatiently waiting to get when Janaff lands in the boughs overhead, shifting from clawed foot to foot, ruffling his feathers and looking furtively over his shoulder. Tibarn looks up at him, tearing the doe apart with his beak, and glares. His Eyes, still acting shifty, sigh. “Tibarn, you’re not gonna like this,” Janaff settles on, stress-preening his coverts.

“I like you acting shifty even less.”

“Well, I don’t want to tell you, so.” Janaff ruffles again, and then squats down, bending his whole body into his feet, squishing his head back on his neck and into his chest and wings. “Lehran is at the Begnion border.”

“We’ve been expecting him, but it’s not something I can solve. He’s free to go where he will.” Nobody alive on Tellius will touch Lehran, and Tibarn isn’t about to be the idiot who risks Ashunera’s ire over something as petty as killing a guy who can’t even die properly. If Lehran wants to come be with his Goddess, Tibarn isn’t going to stop him.

“He brought Zelgius.”

Tibarn stops eating and looks up at Janaff, who shrinks down even more. “Look, that’s just what I saw. They’re on the border with Begnion.” Tibarn ruffles his feathers, clacks his beak, and jumps into the air, leaving his food behind, and wings straight toward the border of the forest. If he could clench his jaw like this, as a Hawk, he _would_. Instead he clenches his beak, and rises higher on the updrafts, speeding like an arrow across the forest.

Serenes is not large. Traversing it on foot can take weeks, but in the air it’s only a matter of minutes to arrive at the Begnion border, close as they were, and Tibarn drops out of the sky like a stone Janaff on his heels.

Lehran has been waiting for them. The old Heron is sitting on the riding board of a cart, his hands folded between his legs. He’s wearing a heavy wool travelling cloak, with holes cut for his wings, and a dark purple robe, revealing white where it parts over the inner robe below his belt, his shoes sensibly sandaled. He looks up when he hears Tibarn land, and his pale lips part in a half-smile. He nods to Tibarn, and then, to Janaff.

Zelgius is standing at the side of the cart. He’s out of armor, and it’s the first time Tibarn has ever seen him in civilian clothes. He seems a lot smaller in just breeches, boots, and a high-collared black shirt, stretched tight over his broad chest. He’s in a coat, but it’s light—linen, fine cloth, with notes of purple. His Sage’s color. The right sleeve, where he lost his arm below the elbow, has been cut off and sewn shut over the stump. He doesn’t seem all that bothered by it.

Tibarn cannot help but notice that Alondite is sheathed at his right hip, the great blade not cast aside.

Tibarn crosses his arms. It’s been two years since the Tower, but neither man has aged even the slightest; Lehran is unchanging and Zelgius is Branded, and two years is little to him. “I thought you were staying in Begnion,” Tibarn says at last, looking at Lehran. The Heron does not smile, simply presses his fingers tighter together.

“For a time, to rest. But never forever.”

“I expected you to at least stay with Sanaki.”

 _Here_ Lehran smiles, just slightly. “She is nearly a woman grown,” he replies. “Do you think she would truly want to spend the rest of her life with her parents watching over her shoulder? She knows where we are if she wants us, and it is past time that either of us played those roles.” The Black Knight died in the Tower of Guidance, but by necessity Lehran has remained in guise as Sephiran, to negotiate a safe exchange of power in Begnion. It seems, now, they are done.

“I can’t stop you,” Tibarn says to Lehran. “If you want to keep watch over Ashunera, be my guest. The General is the one who isn’t coming in my forest. Go back to Begnion, General. You’re not welcome here.”

“Zelgius,” Zelgius corrects him. “I am a General no longer.”

“Then cast aside your sword. If you’re no General, and we’re at peace, you don’t need a blade.”

“Cast aside yours,” Zelgius returns, and then pauses. “Of course,” he smiles, and it’s _charming_. “I had forgotten, how foolish. You cannot, for battle is stuck to your hands and feet, is it not? Then it seems we are at an impasse.”

Tibarn wants to tear this man’s throat out. Hundreds of his brethren are dead because of this man; Alondite is a blade that will drip with blood for centuries.

“Serenes is my home as much as it is yours,” Lehran says, cutting the tension with his serenity. “Zelgius and I will be going to care for Ashunera, and you need have nothing to do with us.”

“And you’re welcome to whatever. Zelgius stays out of my forest.”

“Tibarn.” Lehran’s voice snaps like a whip, and Tibarn looks at him. He has not moved, has not raised his voice. Has not even reached for the tome Tibarn is sure he keeps close at hand. “You will let us through.”

“I will not,” Tibarn squares his shoulders, feels his wings opening.

“It was not a question, Bird King.” Lehran’s eyes catch and hold his, and Tibarn wants to shrink from that gaze. He’s not afraid of much, but he was scared when they found Ashunera waiting for them atop the Tower of Guidance, her entire face empty and void. She had not cared.

Lehran’s face looks like that now. His eyes are as glassy and flat as a still lake, his mouth is untouched snow. He does not care at all about Tibarn. He would strike Tibarn down as easy as breathing. He has lived and walked Tellius since before Tibarn was born, and will live and walk Tellius long after his bones are dust upon the peaks. Tibarn can feel himself shrinking below that gaze.

Tibarn is stubborn, but not stupid. He knows what not to fight, and the oncoming glacier, however slow, will crush him as fast as the avalanche. Lehran is the primordial flood, the fires of war. If Tibarn rouses his ire, he will destroy Tibarn and all who stop him without a hint of remorse.

“Fine,” Tibarn manages at last, when he can tear his gaze from Lehran’s. “Fine. Yes, you can both go in. But no sword at your hip in the Forest, Zelgius. I won’t have you responsible for Ashunera waking.” Zelgius does not broach any complaint, and unbuckles Alondite from his hip, catches the blade in his remaining hand, and leans around the front of the cart to stick it safely under the riding seat. “What’s in the back? Not more armor?” The Black Knight’s armor was repatriated to Daein at the end of the war, to become a national treasure, to be taken out and used again when generational need asks for it. Zelgius’ red armor from his time as Begnion’s general, though—

“Just the scrap of my old armor.” Zelgius jerks his thumb at the back of the cart. “You can look if you want. It’s among our possessions, melted down. I’ll be making nails out of it.” To build their house. Of course.

It will have to be on the ground, for Lehran can no longer fly. His wings, even now, are wrong. They are shriveled, dun and faded. They hang oddly, as if they have been broken one too many times, and do not move with his inflection as do the rest of the Bird Tribes. They are dead.

Tibarn hates looking at them.

“Fine.” He knows when he’s lost. He backs out of the way. “I don’t want to see your face ever again, Zelgius.” Tibarn is sure there will be those amongst the Ravens who will speak out loudly against allowing a Branded of their own clan in without their permission, especially the most infamous Branded alive on Tellius now, but he is King, and he knows that Naesala would bend before Lehran too.

Perhaps the only man who could stand up to him is Ike, and nobody has seen or heard from Ike in two years. He’s vanished, practically off of the face of Tellius, and Soren with him.

Overhead there is a beating of wings, and Tibarn looks up just in time to see a white Heron swoop down and land beside him, Reyson’s feet striking the ground as he shifts back. “Grandfather!” He says, looking to Lehran, blue eyes wide. “We weren’t expecting you.”

“I have come to learn that this is usually the way of grandparents—arriving unannounced, bearing sweets.” Lehran reaches into the folds of his robe, and pulls out a small canvas pouch, which he tosses to Reyson. Reyson opens it, Tibarn leaning over his shoulder, and his eyes get big as he sees that it is full of smoked herring.

Herons. Tibarn’s lip curls.

“Are you staying?” Reyson asks, pocketing the pouch, glancing from Lehran to the cart, and then to Zelgius, who meets his gaze unflinching. He doesn’t look for forgiveness, or for sympathy. He doesn’t even look for pity. “With the General?”

“I’m no General,” Zelgius corrects. “But, yes.”

Reyson’s face shutters for a moment, but he doesn’t question it, not like Tibarn did. He defers to Lehran, as do all the Herons. No matter their bad blood with him, Lehran is Ashunera’s chosen. He is their first, the ancient black Heron. Even Tibarn feels some remorse, because he can’t even imagine living an eternity alone, waiting for a goddess. Waiting for anyone. Without Reyson, without…

“Do you need a guide?” Reyson settles on. Lehran half-smiles, shakes his head.

“I know my way, thank you. On foot we will be some time. Bird-King, if you wish it, you can search the cart. All it has is our possessions and building material for our house. I want to cut as few trees as I can.”

Tibarn’s mouth feels sour and tasteless. “Do whatever you want.” He turns toward Zelgius, then. “If I ever see your face again, I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth.”

Zelgius laughs at him, shakes his head. “Understood.”

Tibarn sneers, and then launches into the air with a screech, not looking back. He doesn’t want Zelgius in his forest, but Tibarn knows when he’s lost a war. The man won’t outlive him, and if it will keep Lehran out of everyone’s hair—fine. He doesn’t want to have to be responsible for any corpses, self-reanimating or not.

 

 

After Reyson and Janaff leave, Zelgius climbs back up beside Lehran on the cart, tugs Alondite back to his own side of the seat. “Better I leave it off,” he says softly, fingers caressing the hilt gently. “That’s the point of this new world, is it not? Peace, for everyone?”

“Ideals are hard to find,” Lehran replies, and his fingers on the side of Zelgius’ wrist call him back, and he sits up, pulls his Sage close, lets Lehran press his face into the side of his neck, nose brushing over his stubble, smiling. “You may have need for it, in this new world.”

“I hope not,” Zelgius tells him, and they lose time kissing, because there’s nobody around and they don’t have to be anywhere, their appointments done, their lives now dotage.

The thing he says after is lost in the touch of Lehran’s lips, and Lehran laughs into his mouth, and they crack the horses into motion and go, at last, on their way.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well,” he says. “At least we’re all alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhhh (looks at smudged writing on hand) sephzel Gay. me self indulgent. try and stop me.
> 
> there is eye horror in this chapter! i made it as non-gory as possible that me, the guy who jacks it to gore, could make it

Leanne and Naesala’s son is born with black wings and a dusting of blond hair, and they take him to Lehran in the woods. He stands in the doorway to his cottage, one of his daughters clutching at his legs, peeking out around his knees, as the dawn shines into the face of the newborn. Naesala wrings his hands behind Tibarn’s shoulder.

“Is he a Raven?” Naesala asks, as Lehran turns the child over. It’s hard to tell, this young, when their wings are the wrong shapes. Lehran checks the boy for blemishes, pulls on his wings, gets a little wail for his trouble. He begins to hum, an almost-Galdrar, as he rocks the baby, and listens closely until the child’s cries turn to tune, and he hands the baby back to Naesala.

“A Heron,” he says. “A black Heron.”

The first black Heron born in almost a thousand years. Lehran smoothes his daughter’s hair out of her face as she peers up at her cousin, this little child, still red and wrinkled.

Naesala starts to cry over his son, and Reyson folds him into his arms, and they go, immediately, to tell Leanne, still resting. Tibarn stays for a moment, watching Lehran’s face, which has paled, faded, and he clutches his daughter close to his side. After a moment, he bends down and picks her up, lets her lean into his shoulder, her small fingers clutching at the sleeve of his robe.

“You sense some evil,” Tibarn says at last, crossing his arms over his chest. Zelgius emerges from the house now that everyone else has gone, his greying hair mussed with sleep. His expression is pinched and unreadable, his shirt off, and he goes to stick his head in the rain barrel by the corner of the house. He pulls back a moment later wide-awake and sopping wet to his shoulders, shaking his head to get some of the water from his hair. “What is it?”

“No evil,” Lehran replies at last, stroking the back of his child, watching Zelgius as the man ambles off around the back of the cottage, stretching. “Not evil. Black Herons are ill luck, Tibarn.” He smiles at the Bird King, mocking. Of himself, mostly. “Ill-fated. Bad things comes on black wings. I was born and cursed at birth, and now there is another like me.” His face falls, shutters, and for a moment, Tibarn is genuinely astounded at how old he looks.

Oh, yes, Lehran has never aged past perhaps twenty-nine in Beorc counting, the age he was when he was first Ashunera’s chosen, however long ago that was. Long enough ago that he was already old when he met Altina, Dheginsea, and Soan. And it has been a long, long time since. But now he looks older than Lorazieh. He looks, suddenly, like the weight of the world is crushing his shoulders.

“I only pray the world has changed,” Lehran settles on at last, sighs. He glances toward the altar, where Ashunera sleeps. “That the color of your wings means nothing, just like the Brands are beginning to mean nothing.” He smiles, briefly, at Tibarn. “Perhaps I am wrong. I do like to be wrong.”

Tibarn has known him long enough now that he just sighs. “Unfortunately,” he growls, “You rarely are.”

 

 

The world has changed, in a hundred years. Not just in that many of the Beorc the Laguz once counted as friends are dead and gone, but that attitudes have changed. Daein’s Branded Queen, Stefan’s Branded city—even the young Empress of Begnion is a first-generation Branded, Lehran’s eldest daughter, born thirty years after the war. Goldoa has opened its borders to other Laguz, and the Beorc are beginning to learn to live in peace with their neighbors, although there is still a long way to go.

Tibarn tries to be hopeful, because Reyson tries to be hopeful, and it’s easier to keep the peace when he agrees with Reyson. But hope means a whole lot of nothing when the Royals go to the border to meet with Kurthnaga, leaving the children behind with Nealuchi and a few other elders.

And, although Tibarn at the time is furious, later he is only thankful, also with Zelgius.

Tellius has moved on, but not everyone on it has. And the birth of a Heron, a _Royal_ Heron, a _black_ Royal Heron, is apparently too much for some people, because halfway through the meeting an elderly Raven comes shooting down through the foliage, crashing into the ground. It’s Nealuchi, and he transforms back, coughing, holding his broken arm to his chest, one wing badly cut and bleeding. “Slavers!” He gasps, looking up at Naesala and Leanne. “In Serenes! For the baby!”

They all go back, the Dragons too, Kurthnaga snapping his way through the trees, his tail whipping a wide trail. Tibarn can hear the Dragons crashing behind long after they have taken to wing, Tibarn carrying Lehran, the Sage light in his arms, one hand pressed to his pregnant belly. When they land, the first thing Tibarn sees is two dead Ravens, and he takes off again as soon as Lehran is on the ground, heading toward the house that Naesala and Leanne keep, beside his and Reyson’s own.

At the foot of the tree there are bodies. Hawks, still and silent, albeit only two. Beorc, the slavers, no doubt, poachers. Almost fifteen of them. On the platform above there are more, sprawled, quiet. There’s blood everywhere, and Tibarn lands on the platform, his boots sliding in it.

Leanne and Naesala are already inside. Tibarn follows them in, and stands, silent, looking at the carnage.

There is blood everywhere. Someone lost an arm. And, standing staring at them resolutely, is Zelgius. At first glance, Tibarn thinks that he’s dead on his feet, but then he moves, looks up. He’s got the hafts of two arrows sticking out of the stump of his right arm, one embedded in the meat of his bicep and one in the side of his shoulder. Judging by the makeshift bandage over his face, acting as an eyepatch, Tibarn can guess that he may have taken a third—or something similar—to the eye. He’s got numerous tiny cuts on his remaining arm and one long, ugly gash across the left side of his chest, bleeding sluggishly, his shirt falling apart around it.

Alondite, in his left hand, glows slightly in the dim light through the canopy. The blade is dripping with blood.

Leanne covers her mouth. “The baby,” she asks, her voice catching on the lilting sounds of the Ancient Tongue. Zelgius tilts his head in the direction of the back of the house

“With the children,” he says, tiredly, and his voice is a hoarse whisper. “He’s fine. They’re all fine.” He sways alarmingly then, and Tibarn crosses the room in two broad steps, grabs the man before he can topple to the floor, pulling Alondite from his hand. Hs fingers are slack and unresisting, and Zelgius lets out an ugly grunt of pain as he sways more on his feet.

Alondite is light in his hands, and somehow, Tibarn has always imagined it would be as heavy as the weight of Tellius.

Naesala and Leanne run to the back, their footsteps pounding on the wood, just as Lehran makes it in the door.

His gasp, in the quiet, is as loud as a thunderclap. Zelgius lifts his hanging head and sees him, and half-smiles. “Zelgius,” Lehran whispers, pulling his robes up and rushing to his side, accepting the slack man from Tibarn’s arms. Zelgius sways again, and his knees finally give out. He hits the floor hard, but does not even flinch despite the fact that he is not a young man any more. In this light, though, with blood and sweat matting his hair, it looks blue-black again, not streaked most of the way through with grey. He’s gasping for breath, swaying.

“My Lord,” Zelgius manages, his voice cracking. Lehran fumbles to turn a chair back upright and sinks down into it, pulling Zelgius over. He presses the undamaged left side of his face into Lehran’s chest, and says something Tibarn very studiously does not listen to as he cleans blood off of Alondite, wiping it down with a handkerchief. He doesn’t want to be privy to whatever Zelgius is saying, although he catches, briefly, “Love,” and, the first time in over a hundred years he’s ever heard the other man call Lehran by his name, without any titles.

“I’ll go get the kids out of here,” Tibarn says, and sets down Alondite beside Zelgius, goes after Naesala and Leanne.

 

 

They take the children out the back, sheperd them into Reyson and Tibarn’s house to wait for their parents. They are shaken, but none of them saw anything, except the eldest. Of those nearly-grown, two are Lehran’s, and they try to go back for their parents.

“No,” Naesala tells them. Their younger siblings hide near them, shaken. “You can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Our father’s hurt!” Their son, the eldest still home, is almost full-grown, and he glowers at Naesala. “At least let me go!”

“No.” Tibarn crosses his arms. “You’re the eldest. You need to stay with the others. We,” and he gestures to Naesala, Leanne, Reyson, “Will help your father.”

“I’m going to go to the house,” his younger sister says, staring Tibarn down. “Uto’s staff is there. He can’t heal our father without it.” Tibarn wants to say no, to keep the children here, safe, together, but Reyson touches his arm.

“I’ll go with you,” Reyson murmurs. “You’re right, he’ll need it. But we’re going to go the long way around.” Reyson takes her hand and they go out the back to go through the woods. They won’t have another generation of their children scarred.

The rest of the children agree to stay put, and Tibarn goes with Naesala and Leanne—and the baby—back to their house. In their absence, Lehran has gotten up and lit lit the tapers, opened all the curtains to illuminate the main room. Zelgius is sprawled shirtless against the side of a turned-over trunk, and when Leanne sees his face she covers her mouth in horror.

An arrow took him clean in the right eye, and the socket oozes blood and worse. Tibarn tries not to look too closely.

Lehran looks up at them when they come in, and he shakes his head. “I did the best I could, but this is going to be a mess to clean up.” Naesala looks around at his house, rubbing the back of his neck. The furniture is splintered, there’s arrows stuck into the wood here and there, and blood on _everything_.

“Well,” he says. “At least we’re all alive.”

Lehran turns back to where he’s carefully pulling the arrows from Zelgius’ wounds, the man hissing between his teeth in pain, fingers knotted up on his knee.

“Reyson and Alina are bringing your staff,” Tibarn says, and Lehran nods. He’s focused on what he’s doing, so Tibarn doesn’t interrupt him any more, just drags over a chair and sits down in front of Zelgius. The man doesn’t open his good eye, but Tibarn can tell he’s awake, focused. “What happened.” Now is the time to ask, while the memories are fresh, to distract Zelgius from the pain he’s dealing with.

“They came soon after you left,” Zelgius begins, choosing his words with care as Leanne and Naesala go about righting the room. Tibarn takes the baby when he’s handed him, and Leanne gets a bucket, leaving to get water to start mopping the floor. “Poachers. If I had to guess, probably working for a Senator.” It’s always the Senators. “Wanted the prince. Some of the elders tried to fight them, even though I warned them not to. Alina went to get Alondite for me, and I holed the children up here as fast as I could. No point in going to our house—this required them to climb in the air, and I cut the ropes so there was no way up but to fly or go around.”

His descriptions of the battle are brief, technical, and direct. Zelgius may now be a father, an ageing man who spends most of his time caring for children, building houses, and wandering around the forst doing aimless odd jobs for the Laguz, but in another life, he was the greatest General in the history of Tellius. (Excepting, perhaps, Ike.) He talks like it—psitioning, weapons, the waves of battle. The number alive when they made it to him (ten) and their weapons. The children hiding, himself as a wall. The arrows, two received while scoping out the enemy, the third in his eye a point-blank thrust from a disarmed archer who, with no other recourse, had stabbed him in the eye with an arrow from his quiver. Zelgius tells what he was able to glean from those he confronted in battle, tries to give Tibarn information on if any below live.

At one point, in the middle of a short description of their demands for the children, Lehran pulls hard on one of the arrowheads and it slides the rest of the way free, and Zelgius shouts, his voice cracking, “ _Fuck_ , Lehran!” and Tibarn has never heard him swear, let alone take his master’s name almost in vain. Immediately afterwards, his breathing is high, fast, and pained, his teeth clenched.

For the first time, Tibarn realizes his mortality.

Afterward, Zelgius sinks back against the trunk, panting for breath. Halfway through his description of the events, Alina and Reyson had returned with the Ashera Staff, passed it through the window rather than look inside. Zelgius had spoken to his daughter, reassuring her he was all right, before Lehran set about healing him.

It’s nightfall by the time they’re done, Lehran washing the worst of the eye-wound out to heal it so it heals cleanly, when Zelgius finally laughs.

“What’s so funny, General?” Naesala asks, cocking his eyebrows. He and Lehran are the only two Zelgius will tolerate calling him by his old title. “Surprised to be on the subhuman side, for once?”

“You know I always was, just as much as you were,” Zelgius returns, but it’s too gentle to truly be a rebuke. He and Naesala understand one another better than anyone. “No,” he muses, as Lehran finishes cleaning out the empty socket where his eye had once been, “They didn’t recognize me. Or Alondite. One of the called up to me ‘Old man, lay down your arms and we’ll let you live.’” Zelgius barks a laugh as Lehran heals shut his wound, and he reaches his fingers up to touch the raw scar. He shakes his head. “Old man—you’d think I was put out to pasture.”

“You’re not _young_ ,” Reyson points out. He sniffs. “Still, more fools they.”

“It’s true,” Zelgius admits. “If they had taken me seriously, I probably wouldn’t have won.” Ten on one is ridiculous odds. Even in his glory days, at the height of his strength, Zelgius would have struggled alone against that number. “I can thank my lucky blessings that I’ve quite so much grey and Ike took my arm. But, it’s still strange.” He rubs his jaw, sitting up with Lehran’s help, and easing himself back on the trunk properly now.

It’s dark at last, and Nealuchi, Kurthnaga, Ena, Nasir, Janaff, and Ulki have joined them. Soren is with the children, but they’re cycling.

“The world’s moved on,” Zelgius says softly. “The wars are distant memories, now. These beorc, they don’t remember it. They don’t know the world any way but how it is now. They spoke of kidnapping a Heron as a fantastic prize, not as everyday activities. They had never seen Alondite or Ragnell except as drawings.” Ragnell is with Priam, off on some wild adventure, as is the young man’s wont. Alondite will probably go to the grave with Zelgius. “None of them could look at Serenes and see the fires. None of them even knew who General Zelgius _was_.”

Of course, much of the history of the wars has been intentionally lost. The Black Knight is a hero in Daein; his armor is now worn by Sothe and Micaiah’s son, High General of her armies, Heron-branded. Lehran is nothing but a myth to the people of Begnion. He sleeps, according to his wishes, with the Goddess, and will wake when she does and not before. The Laguz are treated with reverence, and jibes such as _sub-human_ are dying from the beorc lexicon. Branded have their own city, only starting to flourish.

The scars of war are fading. Slowly, slowly. But fading. One inch at a time. By the time Tibarn dies, Tellius will be a new world. He probably won’t even recognize it.

“The world goes on,” Kurthnaga says softly. “We can only hope to catch it, living a hundred lives for every beorc one.”

They all go very quiet, subdued by that knowledge, and Tibarn pretends to not see Lehran reach out and take Zelgius’ hand, hold it very, very tightly.

 

 

The sun rises on a new day. The blood is gone from Serenes soil, for now. Lehran wakes in the late morning to the sound of the children screeching in the glade, and the distant _thwack_ of wooden swords. Behind the house, he can hear Zelgius chopping wood for the fire he keeps stoked year-round.

Lehran rises slowly, flush with pregnancy, and takes his time to bind his hair back in silence, yawning as he wraps himself in his robe. He glances first out the front door to check on the children—they are all finally trooping off back to school, in town—and then goes to the back door to watch Zelgius. He leans, for a time, against the doorframe, his hands folded together under the swell of his belly, head tilted to the side, and just watches.

It is a warm morning for usually-mild Serenes, and under the shade of the canopy Zelgius is sweating, beads visible at his hairline and on the back of his neck, the hollow of his collarbones, the sculpted lines of his biceps. His pile of wood is about half what they will need for the rest of the week, and when Zelgius pauses to wipe the sweat off of his face and neck, he looks up at the house.

When he sees Lehran, his smile could light up the world.

Zelgius embeds his axe into the stump he chops wood on and drops his towel back over his shoulder. He crosses the back yard in four quick steps, and catches Lehran up in his remaining arm, lifting him off of the ground.

“Zelgius,” Lehran laughs, wrapping his arms around the other man’s neck, balancing his elbows on his collarbones, leaning into the warm safety of him, “I’m not even dressed.”

“Good morning,” Zelgius replies, and Lehran leans down to kiss him. He’s slightly taller than Zelgius even normally, but now the height difference is enough that Zelgius has to crane up to kiss him. “You look radiant, my Lord.” Lehran leans their foreheads together, stares into Zelgius’ face. One green eye, one empty socket, both ringed with fine lines and wrinkles. There is grey streaking his beard now, around his lips, softening with age. His hair, sweat-slick, falls into his face, and there’s grey all through his part.

Zelgius is the same age as Kurthnaga, but looks like a man in middle-age. He should be older—he is closer to three-hundred than two-hundred, but Lehran had begged and pleaded for something, anything, from Ashunera—but here he is, still too young. The longest lived Raven branded perhaps ever. And Lehran loves him, loves the grey in his hair, his softening muscle, the weight he has gained around his waist, the slight slouch to his jowls.

“I love you,” Lehran says, when Zelgius sets him down at last, and they have stopped kissing. He cups Zelgius’ cheek, on the right side, where his eye socket is now empty. He runs his thumb along the curve of Zelgius’ cheekbone, to feel the arc of it. “It’s on the right side,” he says, musing, as Zelgius watches him, warm hand on his hipbone, grounding him. “At least it matches.”

Zelgius huffs a laugh. “I am glad I pass muster,” he murmurs, and lifts his hand to cup the back of Lehran’s neck to pull him closer and kiss him again. “Lehran.”

So what if he hasn’t even had breakfast yet and it is almost midday.

Lehran can spend a little more time with Zelgius.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sienne is packed fit to bursting. Begnion has poured from every corner into the capitol for the Platinum Jubilee, celebration filling the streets, joy and song on the lips of every person. Sanaki, beloved Empress, seventy years on the throne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first off: im real fuckin bad at math so dont like. try to add this timeline up. the timeline for tellius is already incomprehensibly bad, so im not exactly making it any worse, so just assume it all works out somehow. also we dont really know how branded age! will we ever know? probably not! im making this up as i go.
> 
> babies! more babies! ill make so many babies!

It’s strange, to be back in Sienne. It’s been fifty years, now, since they left for Serenes, and Begnion has changed a great deal. So has Sienne. Zelgius feels like he’s young again, a fresh recruit from Daein brought to serve his Lord, seeing the capital with new eyes.

The children certainly are. “What’s that?” Meshina asks, digging her elbow into his temple as she points at a fountain they pass in the crush, Zelgius holding tight to her ankle with his left hand as he carefully stays as near to Lehran as he can, the other man already visibly flagging in the Platinum Jubilee crush. “What’s that fountain from?”

It takes Zelgius a minute, staring at it, to remember the provenance. Lehran beats him to it. “Apostle Yoeah’s Peace Fountain,” he says, adjusting his hold on Grell, their son wriggling in his hold to peer over his shoulder toward the fountain, too. “It was built to commemorate the successful peaceful division of the Begnion Empire into its vassal states.”

“What’s a vassal state?” Meshina asks. Zelgius can do this one.

“A little sibling country,” he tells his daughter, adjusting her slightly so she stops digging her elbow into his eye socket. “When you and Grell go down to Aunt Leanne’s house together, you have to hold his hand so he won’t trip, right?”

“Well, yeah. Because his legs are short.”

“And that’s what a vassal state does. The older sibling country, Begnion, holds their hand.”

“That,” Lehran says stiffly, “is a simplification so severe I feel rather faint.” Zelgius grins, although Lehran, walking just in front of him cannot see it. “The political nuance is far more complex than that.” Meshina and Grell giggle. They find it funny when their parents put on mock arguments.

“It’s an allegory. Wrapped in a metaphor.”

Lehran shakes his head, and they continue to push through the crowds. Sienne is packed fit to bursting. Begnion has poured from every corner into the capitol for the Platinum Jubilee, celebration filling the streets, joy and song on the lips of every person. Sanaki, beloved Empress, seventy years on the throne. And so, too, have many of Sanaki’s companions from the Wars, those who still live—Laguz, mostly, and many Branded, and the youngest of the survivors of the tower. Serenes sent their own representatives (Tibarn, Reyson, Naesala, and Leanne) as did Goldoa (Kurthnaga, Ena, and Almedha). Micaiah and Pelleas, now terribly old, have come from Daein, along with Haar and Jill’s eldest daughter, and brought Rafiel and Nailah with them. Stefan is in from the desert, partly for negotiations for the official cession of the land from the Senate and also to visit. Soren and Priam, Queen Elincia and Prince Ramon, Mist and her two children, Skrimir and Ranulf and Lethe.

But there are so many who aren’t there.

It has left a strange taste in Zelgius’ mouth, the entire time they’ve been planning this trip, that Ike _won’t_ be here. Jill and Haar are gone too. Titania, who Zelgius once fought, and many of the rest of the Greil mercenaries. Caineghis passed recently, injured fighting a fire on the plains in Gallia. Sothe, too, has passed. Oliver of Tanas died twenty years ago, and good riddance to him.

Tellius is turning on, and it’s only been fifty years. What will Tellius look like in another hundred?

Lehran takes a turn abruptly, as they reach the palace complex, and Zelgius shifts their daughter, follows him as his Lord makes their way down sidestreets, past crowds and drunks, until they pop out by one of the side entrances to the palace. He produces a slim silver key from the thong he wears around his wrist, and unlockes the tall steel gate that bars their way, pushing it open. It does not even squeak.

“Home,” he says, quietly. He sets down Grell, and their son, still only all of ten, immediately toddles off down the hallway, investigating. Zelgius quickly sets Meshina down before she falls off his shoulders, and she follows her brother, catching his hand up in hers so he doesn’t get too far.

Zelgius and Lehran step in, Zelgius looking around to make sure they haven’t been followed, hand on Alondite’s hilt, as Lehran locks the gate back up. But nobody is in sight.

They’re safe.

“Uto?” Meshina calls, her voice echoing down the hall, Lehran looking into the darkness of the underground passageway, “There’s no torches down here!”

Lehran looks at Zelgius, his mouth a half-smile. “How unfortunate,” his Sage says. “Three Bird-Branded, and one Heron, and not a one of us has any darkvision to speak of.” Zelgius laughs under his breath, since Lehran _did_ bring Creiddylad, which he can make glow plenty bright, and reaches into the pouches at his belt, bulls out a taper, and holds it out to Lehran.

“Lord Sage,” he says, quite seriously, “If you would be so kind as to light this for me.”

“If I must,” Lehran laughs, and cups it, and says the words of magic that slide off of Zelgius’ tongue, and the wick bursts into light. Standing perhaps fifteen feet before them are their children, who are staring boggle-eyed at their parents, in an otherwise dark tunnel.

“Whoa,” Meshina says.

“I keep telling you,” Zelgius says to his daughter as he lifts the candle, following them under the palace, “Just because your parents are weird forest hermits _now_ doesn’t mean we were _always_ weird forest hermits.” This has been a complaint oft of late. Her parents are boring. Can’t fly. Live alone in the forest. Don’t do cool stuff with magic or swords.

“Well, yeah,” Meshina says. “But I always kind of figured you’d like. Made up that whole Alondite-the-magic-sword-of-blessings thing.” Zelgius throws his head back and laughs, and they move on into the Begnion palace, to see his first daughter, grown, now, older than he is. When they reach the exit into the grounds proper, it is guarded, and the two armed guards turn and pull spears.

Lehran calmly pulls Grell back before he can run directly into the spear points, and Meshina stops short, rocking onto her toes. The guards stare at the family. The family stares at the guards.

“Where did you come from?” One of them finally manages. Zelgius replies by reaching for his sword—making both guards start—but he only unbuckles the sheath, holds it out by the leather straps. He raises his eyebrows.

“Do you know what this is?” He says, and neither of them move for a time, peering at it. “This,” Zelgius says, “Is Alondite.” The guards continue to stare at him, at the sword.

Very slowly, they lower their spears. It has been only fifty years, but many of those who were alive when Lehran and Zelgius left are dead now. Oh, there are paintings—of the Red General, of the Prime Minister—but they look very different now, even if neither has really aged. For one thing, Lehran has wings. Zelgius has one less arm than he used to. Meshina boggles as the guards step away, bow, and Zelgius fumbles one-handed to return Alondite to where the sword normally rests at his hip, gets the buckle on the third try.

He has to hurry his footsteps to catch up to Lehran, who has towed their wide-eyed children along with a half-smile on his lips, his feet taking them unerringly through the palace complex. Meshina opens her mouth, and questions start to pour out, stumbling over one another in their haste. “Alondite is real? Were you really a General? What kind of a General? Is that how you lost your arm? Was Uto a General? He gave you Alondite, right? Is that why Uncle Tibarn doesn’t like you? Is that—“

“I was Prime Minister,” Lehran interrupts her, turning her head forward. “Please, you’ll trip over your own feet. Save your questions, my dear. You will have more before the night is ended.” Lehran turns when they come to the tower that once served as their rooms, and unlocks the door with the same key, pushing it open.

The stairwell is not dusty, the wall-sconces are well filled with oil, and Lehran presses his fingers to the first one, murmuring until it alights and the flame travels up the interior wall, along the channel of oil hidden in the stone, lighting all the way up. He takes the hem of his robe and starts to climb the steps, the children hurrying after, Zelgius bringing up the rear.

Their rooms, when they reach them, are pristine. Nothing has been moved, they are spotless. No dust. No debris. Their belongings, left behind a lifetime before, are where they left them, and Lehran runs his hands over one of the desktops, goes to open the door into the bedroom. “You can place your things in there,” he tells the children, who are staring wide-eyed, overwhelmed by the opulence. “Then get changed out of your traveling clothes, I have to run a bath for you both.” He tugs his hair back out of his face, binding it at the base of his neck, as Zelgius takes Alondite off properly, sets it in its holder beside what was once their bed.

“What time is dinner?” He asks Lehran, grimacing as he tugs his boots off one-handed, untying the heavy pack slung over his bad arm and setting it down beside the smaller ones the children brought.

“Half-past sixth bell, in a few hours yet.” Lehran bustles off to the ensuite, and calls the children in to watch as he shows them _running water_ , their gasps of surprise at the hot water that explodes out of the tap loud in the quiet of their rooms. Zelgius leaves him to it, goes to open the doors to the balcony to air the rooms out, and stands there for a time, barefoot, leaning on the railing, looking down at Sienne below him.

The city is so full. He’s never seen it this full, with people at every inch of the streets, on the rooftops. A few catch his eye, wave, cheer. There are parades, streamers, kites, confetti, balloons, and music wends its way up to him on the wind. He gets lost in it for a time, toes curled against the cool marble flooring.

He never thought he would find himself so homesick for a place that had, in its own way, been worse ever than Daein, than the village that had run him out when he’d been still a child.

He doesn’t know how much time passes, watching Sienne pulse and laugh and move like a living organism, before the balcony doors open again and Lehran joins him. Zelgius glances, sees that he is clean and dressed, his hair bound over one shoulder in a single tie, wearing gold and white and purple.

He doesn’t even begin to look like Sephiran. He just looks like himself. Himself, but pristine, perfect as untouched snow. Lehran smiles at him, and Zelgius is hit, not for the first time, by the realization that he would burn the world down if Lehran asked him to. He has, in fact, done that once already. But when Lehran looks at him like that, like Zelgius is the most perfect thing he’s ever seen—

“I can hear you thinking,” Lehran says, and Zelgius laughs, looks away, back down to the city, as his Sage presses to his side. “Nothing of sorrow, I hope?”

“I just miss it,” he tells Lehran, softly. He can hear the children ricocheting around their old apartments, investigating everything, and he does not wish to give them any sorrow. “Sienne. Begnion. This whole world, right outside our doorstep.” Serenes is quiet, their own corner of it beside Ashunera’s altar especially so, and he has grown accustomed to that peace. Before the children, they often went months without seeing another soul. So different from their lives in Begnion, even after the war, where they were constantly inundated with meetings, plans, projects. “I know why we live as we do, but sometimes...”

Zelgius trails off, because he knows Lehran can guess what he is feeling. Lehran leans against his side, and Zelgius reaches for his hand, tangles their fingers together.

“I know,” Lehran agrees. “I miss it too. But Tellius must turn without me. If you wish to leave, to return to Sienne, I cannot stop you—“

“No,” Zelgius says, stopping Lehran. He turns toward the other man, pulls him closer by his hand, kisses him. “Between you and the world, I will always choose you first.”

“Ew!” Grell yells from inside. “Why are you _kissing_?” Zelgius smiles into Lehran’s mouth, and does it again, lifts his hand, cups his cheek, pulls him closer until Lehran is pulling at the sides of his shirt, tugging him back. “Stop it!”

They do, eventually stop it, but mostly because Zelgius needs to get properly dressed.

 

 

There are two parties in Sienne that night. One, out in the streets, is open to all. The other, inside the palace, is limited access, for only officials and friends, many of whom have crossed the continent to attend. For Meshina and Grell, who have previously viewed gatherings in Serenes of the tribes as the most crowded and exciting event of the year, stop midway into the entrance to the audience hall and stare around, wide-eyed, mouths agape.

Indeed, it is a sight to see.

Mainal Cathedral is beautiful. Almost a thousand years of love and care have gone into it, and every inch sparkles, glitters, gleams. The worth of the building is incalculable. And, currently, the audience hall is packed fit to burst with the royalty of all Tellius—and a great many others, besides. There are members of the Dawn Brigade here. Former Begnion footsoldiers. Royal Guard. Holy Guards. Dragons. Branded. Mercenaries, travelers, tinkers.

All companions from sixty years before.

“Hold hands,” Lehran tells the children, who reach for one another blinding, still gaping. Lehran takes Meshina’s hand, and Zelgius walks beside them as they cross the room. Plenty of people stop them, plenty glare. They pause to speak to their neighbors—the Birds of Serenes, the Dragons of Goldoa. But they do not linger.

“We can come back to Aunt Leanne,” Lehran tells Meshina, when she whines about having to move on. “We must go see the Apostle.”

Sanaki sits on the dais at the front of the chamber. “Zelgius?” She says, as they approach. Her eyes are blind, now, her hair almost lavender with the grey in it. She searches before her, and beside her, Micaiah touches her wrist, draws her finger down it so that Sanaki knows where before her Zelgius stands.

“Apostle,” he says quietly, approaching the steps before her throne, and kneeling so she can reach out her feathery hands to feel his face. Her thumbs run over his nose, his cheekbones, his eyebrows, his chin. “It’s good to see you,” Zelgius tells her, when she lets him go, taking one of her fine-boned hands in his large one. “You look beautiful. Have you been well?” Her last letter was some months ago, and she had just recovered from a chill.

“Yes,” Sanaki smiles up at him. “But I do not look beautiful. Just old.”

“You can be both,” Zelgius tells her, and she looks around.

“I heard your footsteps, but not...I’m sorry, Lehran? Are you there?”

“Here,” he answers quickly, coming to her side, next to Zelgius, and Sanaki stands and almost falls into his arms, and father and child hold each other very tightly. Lehran buries his face in her hair, and Sanaki holds tight around his waist. “I’m sorry, my dear girl. I forgot I must sound different with my wings out.” Sanaki sinks back down eventually, and he lets her go.

“Are they much healed?” Sanaki asks, hopefully. The last she saw them, at her wedding more than fifty years before, they had still been badly injured, molting still, twisted. They have healed much in the intervening years in Serenes, and are now almost full of whole feathers again.

“See for yourself,” Lehran tells her, and turns, stretching his wings out so she may touch the pinions, the down, and she is gentle with them, knowingly gentle, as gentle as Zelgius himself is, as she feels them, laughing. Once her curiosity is sated, Lehran steps aside. “Children,” he says quietly. “Come forward and meet your sisters.”

Apostle Sanaki of Begnion is a very old woman. She has led her country through a Golden Age with a fierce kind of rage that has suffused all her bones, filled her body with strength and loyalty to the people she had sworn to protect. Her robes hang loose around her body, her eyes grey with cataracts, her hair almost all white. Yet, Zelgius can still see her family clearly in her—she has the same sort of tiredness that dogs Lehran’s steps hanging over her shoulders.

Quen Micaiah of Daein tonight is dressed in dazzling red and white, shining strands of silver threaded through both, making her glow beneath the lights of the cathedral. She looks about of an age with Kurthnaga, in her late twenties, and she rises to come over, take Lehran’s hands, kiss him on the cheeks. “Grandfather,” she says softly. She raises her eyebrows, sets her hands on his stomach. “No more yet?”

Lehran laughs. “Not yet,” he agrees. Micaiah grins, and turns to Zelgius, curtsying.

“Sir Knight.”

Zelgius returns the bow, albeit stiffly. He’s not quite as used to it as he was years ago, and he has half an arm less. “Lady of Dawn.”

Micaiah has never been one for large shows of joy, but she does pull him into a close hug. Without his armor, it’s possible now, Zelgius wearing only a fine shirt and tunic, Alondite at his waist. “It’s good to see you,” Micaiah admits, quietly. “You know about—“

“I know,” he agrees. He squeezes her shoulder. “It’s not your fault, you know.” Micaiah’s face falls.

“If I had just...done more,” she tries, and he shakes his head at her, pulls her close again.

“It wouldn’t have mattered, and you know this. Do not make yourself a martyr. I’m sure you’ve heard as much from the others.” She is much like her grandfather in this, for though she nods, Zelgius can tell that she does not take his words to heart. Instead, Zelgius slings his arm over her shoulder, and she turns back to see Lehran, the children, and Sanaki.

Meshina has been practicing her curtsy, and she does it again when she notices Micaiah watching her. Sanaki beckons her forward, to feel her face, and she goes as called, bends over into her sister’s hands. “Oh, she does look like you both,” Sanaki muses. “You have your father’s brow.” Then she pauses, and clarifies, for these three children all have _two_ fathers, “Zelgius. You have Zelgius’ brow.”

“Fortunately, she has Lehran’s nose.” Zelgius adds. Meshina rolls her eyes.

“She’s the one?” Micaiah asks, turning to Lehran, who nods. Micaiah holds her hand out for Meshina, who, confused, shakes it. “So you are Meshina. I am Micaiah, of Daein. I am the Apostle’s older sister. We met once before, when my youngest son was born, do you remember it?” Meshina, eyes wide, shakes her head, and Micaiah smiles. “You were still a babe in arms at the time. I am not surprised you do not remember. Is it true that you hear Ashunera’s voice?”

They don’t talk about this. Not outside of those precious few companions who climbed the Tower of Guidance together. None of Micaiah’s children could hear her. Micaiah herself cannot, as she could only ever listen for Yune, not for Ashera. It has been centuries since Lehran could hear her voice. Sanaki had no children. They were all, for a time, unsure—perhaps there would be none who could hear her voice, in this new world.

Meshina looks to Lehran for guidance, holding tight to his sleeve, and he nods. “You can tell her,” he murmurs, smoothing back her hair, the same color as Zelgius’ own, a dark blue the same as the night sky. “She used to hear Yune’s voice, just like I did.” Meshina’s eyes get very wide, looking up at Lehran, who nods, quite seriously. “When Sanaki saved me, it was with Yune’s voice, speaking through Micaiah.” Meshina flushes, when she looks at Micaiah, and she nods.

“I...yes,” she admits, at last. “I do. She never…talks much. She’s very tired. But she says hello, sometimes. She wanted me to come here, and meet you.” Micaiah nods, her fingers pressed to her chin, and looks to Sanaki for a moment.

“You know,” Sanaki says to their daughter, “The Apostle of Begnion must hear the voice of the Goddess and wear the Heron brand on her skin. I am the first, ever, who does not.” Meshina nods, her eyes huge, and lifts her hands, turns the over.

The Heron brand snakes up her wrist. Micaiah pulls her glove off, and shows Meshina her own, the exact same. “We are Branded from the same ancestor,” Micaiah explains. “Your father is our grandfather. You and your brother are our aunt and uncle...albeit quite distantly.”

Sanaki leans forward, and Zelgius knows what she is about to say. They have discussed it at length, him and Lehran, and he knows what is going to have to happen. None of Micaiah’s children wear the brand. There must be an Apostle in Begnion.

Lehran’s fingers, briefly, touch his wrist. It is a reminder, a grounding, and Zelgius pulls away, and goes to see the rest of the party, for he cannot be there to listen to the inevitability of his daughter, who looks just like him, their little miracle child, make the decision to leave home forever.

 

 

Soren eventually finds him, some time later, sitting on a balustrade and eating one-handed, a plate of sweetmeats balanced on his knee. There will be a banquet, but not for some time yet. Soren is taller, now, fully-grown at last, and tagging along at his knee is a slim whippet of a teenager with shaggy dark-blue hair and Soren’s eyes, as bright and guileless as his father’s are hard. For a time, neither Soren nor Zelgius speak, and he eventually sets his plate aside.

“I heard,” he says at last, not breaking eye contact with Soren. “From Kurth.” Soren nods decisively. “I’m sorry, Soren.”

“No point in crying over spilt milk.” Ike has been dead, now, six months. He was injured in a bandit raid that his small mercenary company had been hired to fend off from a caravan. It had been, according to what Zelgius had heard, a shallow gut wound, all things considered. But it had festered, he had not been young enough to fight it off even with vulneraries, and by the time they had reached Nevassa, even Micaiah had not been able to save him. He’d passed, and quickly. “He wasn’t exactly young.”

“But still,” Zelgius replies. “Ike was one of the best men I have ever met. Tellius is poorer for his loss. I wish I could have seen him again.” It’s strange, how their fates twined. He turns, after a moment, to the young man, holds out his hand for the boy to shake. “I last saw Ike right after you were born. You must be Priam, yes?” Priam is now sixteen, almost of an age with Grell. He looks hilariously outsized like this—he’s the same height Soren was at his age, and he has Ragnell strapped to his back, the blade nearly as tall as he is. “Do you know how to use that sword yet?” Zelgius asks, gesturing to Ragnell.

“Well, yeah.” Priam laughs. “Stick them with the pointy end!”

Soren looks at Zelgius a little despairingly, as if to say _you see what I have to deal with_. Zelgius raises his eyebrows in return. “Did Ike not teach you?”

“Well, a little,” Priam says. “But Dad was...I mean. Like. Pretty old. For a Beorc, and all. So he did his best, but it was hard. So no, I don’t really know much.” Zelgius nods, thoughtfully, and then lifts Alondite up onto his lap.

Priam’s eyes go very wide. He gapes a little. He looks from Alondite, to Zelgius’ right arm, then to his face, and his mouth sort of just drops open. “Whoa,” he says, very softly. “My dad cut off your arm!”

Zelgius...isn’t sure what he expected. “Yes?” He agrees, after a moment.

“And you killed my grandfather!”

“Yes. I’m not proud of it, but yes, I did.” And, in point of fact, the boy’s great-grandfather as well. But while Dheginsea’s death may have been upon the point of Zelgius’ blade, he only fell because of a great many who fought to weaken him, to let the blood of a failed hope be on Zelgius’ hands. “I trained your father,” he says, after a time. “And I learned from your grandfather when he was young.” Priam stares at him, and after a moment, Zelgius lets Alondite slide back to hang from his waist.

“You know where I am,” he says to Soren. “If you want me to teach him.”

Soren sniffs. “I want you to fall off a cliff, but we can’t all get what we want in life.” Zelgius—almost—smiles. Soren never changes, and that is a relief. “We’ll see. Come on, Priam. I need to talk to Kurthnaga.”

And Zelgius is left alone.

He speaks to others through the night. Ranulf comes over, and they talk of little things, for a time. Pelleas, stooped, comes to pull over a chair and they talk about the way Daein has changed, and Pelleas’ coming trip to Serenes. He will be staying with Zelgius and Lehran; he is too old to go up into the treetop houses with Naesala and Leanne.

As the party filters into the banquet proper, Grell comes loping over, followed by Priam. The two youngest boys, they have immediately bonded—and both of them are Branded on the face as well. “Dad!” Grell yells, waving his hands, as Priam sprints behind him, Ragnell slapping his heels. “Uto says you have to come back now for dinner!”

Zelgius gets up, and sweeps his son up, lets Grell hang from his right bicep, albeit carefully. Priam eyes his left, hopefully, and Zelgius holds his arm up. “All right,” he tells the boy. “But no further than the door.” He feels a bit like a milkmaid, covered in buckets, but it’s all right, and the boys giggle and laugh.

 

 

After dinner, the children go to bed, and the adults retire to a parlor. There are drinks, and talking, and politicking, and at the end of the evening, Lehran draws Zelgius into a chair beside him, next to Micaiah and Sanaki. “It’s decided?” He asks them, and all of them nod. He feels an empty longing at the pit of his stomach and closes his eyes for a moment. “Is she staying—“

“No,” Lehran says, gently. “She’ll come home with us, to get her things, and say goodbye to Serenes. She’ll return in two months time, with Leanne.” That is a little better. They will have a trip home, and he will get to wake up in the mornings to his little girl, just like he used to wake up in the mornings to Sanaki.

“We wanted to know,” Sanaki says, “If you want to return with her. Take the role of Imperial Protector, to stay beside her until she is crowned. I do not want her to be lost and alone here, without anything of home, and Lehran mentioned how much you miss Sienne...” And for a moment, Zelgius reels. Return to Sienne. Not as a General, just to stand beside his daughters. To—

And he looks to Lehran, who is watching him calmly, but with that same sad face Zelgius has seen him wear a hundred, a thousand times before, as Tellius moves on without him. He is ancient, older than the stones of Sienne, than the altar he cares for day and night. He is first and last. Lehran watches him, and it is with this look of agony and sorrow.

Tellius will move on without him. He will be left behind. It would only be for a handful of years—a decade, perhaps, maybe even at most—but the very idea…

“No,” Zelgius says at last. “Thank you, Sanaki, but no. My place is at my Lord’s side, and nowhere else. Besides,” he adds, “Meshina is growing up. If she is to be Apostle, she must learn to navigate Sienne, Begnion, Tellius. I was never much gifted at it, as you all well know. No—“ and he meets Lehran’s eyes, “I know where I must be. I have a duty, after all.”

They do not go back to their apartment, after. The children are asleep, or as asleep as they possibly can be, and instead of going to bed Lehran and Zelgius go to the temple baths. It is a far cry from their own bathing at home, in a wooden bucket heated with stones from the hearth, and they are entirely alone. Lehran sits at the side of the pool, airing his wings out carefully in the steamy air, while Zelgius sinks down to lay comfortably beneath the water, eyes shut, the heat suffusing his whole body. He is not young any more—he is more or less on into middle age now, closer to two-hundred than to one, and he can feel the seasons slipping into the cartilage between his joints. His phantom right hand pains him more often now than it used to, the memory of Ragnell biting into his elbow, shearing through flesh and bone poignantly powerful at the back of his skull.

He surfaces eventually, shaking water out of his hair, and looks up at Lehran. The other man is smiling down at him, his blue eyes warm, and Zelgius leans into the side of the baths beside him, his forearm up on the stone lip, chin resting against his wrist, lifts his eyebrows. Lehran strokes his hair out of his face, fingers lingering on the grey strands at his temples, beside his part, and then pulls his chin up so they can kiss.

And then Lehran undoes the last few ties on his binder, and lets it fall, and follows Zelgius down into the water, and then they make a bit of a mess.

“Thank you,” Lehran says, afterward, head pillowed on the slope of Zelgius’ shoulder, their fingers tangled, the water still hot around them. Zelgius, half-asleep in the heat and the comfort of the moment, Lehran still on his lap, mumbles something to the other man. It takes a minute for him to find the words, and he lifts his hand to run it up Lehran’s side, thumb feeling the stretch marks at the base of his stomach, newly-renewed.

“For what?” He asks, at last, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. Lehran’s breath is hot against the side of his neck, his wings dripping faintly. “For—“

“Well, yes, for that.” Lehran laughs, and Zelgius leans their heads together, grinning. Perhaps a _little_ smugly. “But for not staying. I know...it is selfish, to ask so much, especially with Meshina still so young, but—“

“I’m not a politician,” Zelgius tells him, wraps his arm around the other man’s waist to pull him closer. It’s an awkward angle—they’re still joined, even though he’s gone soft—but he wants to feel Lehran in his arms. The presence of him. He’s still alive, they’re still together. “I was never even all that good at it when I was General of the Central Armies. Meshina will outlive me. She needs to learn to navigate Begnion, learn to be an adult. I can’t...” he sighs.

They failed so much with Sanaki.

“We can’t protect them forever.”

“No,” Lehran agrees. “We can’t.” His fingers trace the scar that bisects Zelgius’ chest, running from the top of his right clavicle down across his sternum. “Sometimes,” he says, softly, “I wonder if we can even protect ourselves.”

“That’s why I’m staying,” Zelgius tells Lehran. “To protect you. Meshina can take care of herself, Sanaki will teach her how.”

“We did a good job with that one,” Lehran agrees. “If you wanted to, I would not mind. You would come back.”

“But I don’t want to,” Zelgius turns, kisses him, until they both go quiet. “I want to stay with you.” And then, softly, he murmurs, “Lehran.”

 

 

Three days later, they leave from the Sienne gate, once more piled up on their cart. Lehran rides in the back, with Grell, while Meshina is up on the seat with Zelgius as he shows her how to hold the reins. They don’t talk much, until they’re on the road, and then she leans into is shoulder, and he lifts his left arm to let her nestle against his side, and tugs her close.

“I’m not sure I really want to be the Apostle,” she says, soft enough that she can pretend Lehran and his fine hearing won’t hear. Zelgius hums quietly in answer, and runs his hand down her side. She’s grown so much since she was born, when she was so tiny she fit in the crook of his arm. “Beorc are so...different, than home. And loud. And smelly. And I’ll have to not be your daughter any more, and I can’t ever come home. And...”

“And nobody will make you,” he promises her solemnly. “You can go, and if it’s not the right place for you, you can leave. Sanaki won’t force you to stay against your will. And if you do stay, you can still come home to visit. Perhaps you can coax my Master out of the forest more often.” She is growing up, now, and he can confide in her things he couldn’t when she was still, truly, a child. “I worry about him,” Zelgius admits, and now _he’s_ pretending Lehran won’t be able to hear. “Locking himself away from the world, and hoping it won’t go on without him. It hurt him, so much, last time. I’m terrified to see what it will do to him if he does it again this time.”

“Me too,” Meshina tells him. “Uto is always so sad. I want him to come see Apostle Sanaki, and Queen Micaiah.” She pauses. “I keep wanting to call her Aunt Micaiah, but she’s really my _niece_. That’s really weird.”

“She is whatever you want her to be,” Zelgius tells his daughter. “Just like you will be whatever you will want to be. They asked me if I wanted to go with you, to stay and be your bodyguard until you settle in. I said no in Sienne, but if you want me to...” he leaves it hanging, lets her decide. If Meshina needs him, Zelgius will go with her, as much as he doesn’t want to. Lehran will still be there when he comes back, but Zelgius has a limited lifespan ahead of him.

Lehran does not.

He wants to give Lehran as much of his time as he can.

“No.” Meshina straightens, bumps her head up into his chin a few times. “No, I want to do it by myself. If I’m going to be the Apostle, I have to learn to do it by myself. But...” she hesitates, and looks up at him.

She has eyes the same color as Sanaki’s once were. They look odd in her face. They look a little too-old for her baby fat. “If...if I _do_ want you and Uto to come. You will, won’t you?”

“We will,” Zelgius promises her. “If you need us, we’ll come.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You want us to train him,” Lehran guesses. Soren nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this entire chapter just for the conversation about lehran's name.
> 
> mentions of assisted suicide in this chapter, nothing graphic but its there

It is two springs after Sanaki’s Platinum Jubilee that an angry pounding on the door of the cottage rouses everyone asleep inside. Except Grell, who is now properly a teenager and could sleep through the end of the world. But it wakes Zelgius up (he groans and presses his hand to his forehead), Lehran (who rolls over in bed and moans, cursing colorfully under his breath), and then, immediately afterward, the baby.

Levail starts bawling.

“Fuck,” Zelgius says, and gets up to get the baby. The pounding on the door is still going, and he wants to yell to whoever it is to shut up, but he needs to get the baby, and he fumbles his way over to the bassinet to pick Levail up. He’s barely two weeks old, and Zelgius has found, in the fifteen years since they had Grell, he has _forgotten_ just how hard newborns are to deal with. Screaming. Crying. Fussy, constantly.

Levail is even more fussy than either Grell or Meshina were, and Zelgius has to focus entirely on quieting the child, soothing him, rocking him back and forth, pressed into his bare shoulder, still half-asleep, while Lehran stumbles blearily over to the door, wrapping himself in his robe, his wings rumpled and feathers still sleep-askew, a long sliver of his pale neck visible, his high collarbones catching the false dawn through the window.

He jerks open the door. “What,” Lehran snaps, uncharacteristically acidic. “We _just_ got him to bed.”

Soren is standing in the doorway.

He stares.

Zelgius, still most of the way inchoate, wonders what a tableaux they must make. Lehran, naked except for his robe, still immediately postpartum, heavy with water weight. Zelgius, in breeches and holding a screaming newborn. The house dark, the usually-stoked fire running low.

Soren looks to the baby, to Zelgius, back to the baby, to Lehran, and then to the baby again. “Nobody mentioned that,” he says after a moment. “Congratulations?”

“Boy,” Lehran replies, pulling his robe tighter and tucking his wings down around himself, shivering in the cold night air. “Levail. No Brand. Two weeks, Hawk Moon. Any other questions?”

“Tibarn said Zelgius is usually up at this time,” Soren says, trying to cover for his lapse in propriety. “I had thought—“

“Usually,” Zelgius growls, his voice thick and gritty and low with sleep. “Baby. Just got to sleep.” Fortunately, Levail is quieting, and he rocks the child, humming low in his chest, trying to soothe him back to sleep. Lehran glances back at Zelgius, nods, and shuts the door, blocking out the light.

It takes about ten more minutes to get Levail to quiet down and doze off again, and when he’s done, Zelgius follows his Lord back out the front door to find him speaking stiffly to Soren. Lehran is wrapped tight in his robe, shaking, and Zelgius goes to stand beside him, pulling the other man into his arms, rubbing his back to warm him up.

“He’s lucky he didn’t take his head off,” Soren growls, rubbing his temples. They’ve been talking, and it only takes Zelgius a moment to recognize the source of the conversation. He’s more awake now, out in the cool morning air of Serenes, and Priam is sitting on the bench beside Ashunera’s altar, whistling and fidgeting.

Zelgius squints. The boy’s hair is…very. Very short. Cut almost above his ears. It was long and shaggy, last he saw Priam.

“I can’t do anything with it,” Soren continues. “We tried going by Crimea, but Ramon and Renning couldn’t even touch the hilt. I asked Shie and Talbot, and neither one of them had any advice either. Even Leo said he was out of his depth. Ragnell has rejected everyone but Priam and Zelgius, and frankly, I’m about to just not let him have it back.”

“He tried to shave,” Zelgius says, abruptly. Soren looks over at him.

“Did you overhear us?”

“No,” Zelgius replies. “He saw Ike doing it as a parlor trick, didn’t he?” Soren isn’t the sort to gawp, but he is a little stunned. “I taught Ike how,” Zelgius explains. “I can’t any more one-handed, but he was interested in learning how. I’m guessing Priam tried to copy him.”

“Almost cut his own head off, the idiot.” Soren sighs, his shoulders slumping. “I don’t know how he turned out so...foolish. Ike was never this flippant.” Zelgius can guess; Soren seems the sort of parent to dote. Ike did too. “I wouldn’t have come here if I had known about the baby. You can’t possibly—“

“You want us to train him,” Lehran guesses. Soren nods.

“At least enough to have him be competent with it, and to treat the blade with respect. I’m worried that he’ll anger it, if he keeps treating it like a toy. I’d rather drink vinegar than ask either of you a favor, but I’m out of options. Please, teach him how to use the sword.” Soren’s mouth is a moue of displeasure, and he sighs.

He looks very tired, all of a sudden.

“Ike would have wanted you to,” Soren admits. “I know, with the baby, you can’t really—“ Lehran reaches out, takes Soren’s shoulders in his hands, and says,

“It’s not your fault Ike is dead.”

Soren lets out a long, shaking breath. He presses his face into his hand. “I know,” he says, barely a whisper. “But I can never stop thinking that if I had done more, pulled him back sooner, he’d have had a few more years.”

“That is the way of Beorc. They glow, bright as the sun, and then fade. The fate of those who love them is to linger, alone. I am sorry, Soren. But he did not die because of your faults, and you do not have to fear that Priam will either.”

“I know that,” Soren snarls, but Zelgius suddenly thinks that, maybe, he didn’t as much as he thinks. “We’ll be staying in Serenes perhaps a week, I’m not sure. Kurthnaga and Mother want me to come to Goldoa, there’s been some issue with some structural irrigation and they want my input on it. I’ll take Priam with me if you don’t want him to stay here.”

“We have an empty bed,” Lehran says, gently. “Meshina is in Sienne now. He and Grell are almost of an age, both Branded, both boys. I think they should get along quite well.”

“Thank you,” Soren says, his voice barely a whisper. “Thank you.”

 

 

Priam settles in after two weeks, and gets used to the routine of the house. Zelgius wakes him to wake up first thing in the morning and chop the wood, since he’s still sleep-deprived because of the baby, and it’s good exercise. At first Priam is totally useless at it, and they get mostly scraps of wood, slivers of bark. But he improves noticeably, and he and Grell are fast friends.

At the end of those two weeks, Zelgius takes Priam out to the clearing. He has been hauling around Ragnell in its sheath since he arrived, but Zelgius has forbidden him to draw the blade, just has made him carry it everywhere he goes. He sleeps with it, chops wood with it, cooks and cleans with it. Priam stares up at him, still craning his head back, narrow and skinny and rickety on his skinny legs.

“Now what?” Priam asks. Zelgius gestures to Ragnell, and crosses his remaining arm over his chest.

“Draw it, and show me a drill. Nothing fancy.” Priam is still too short to keep Ragnell sheathed at his side, and he has to wriggle around to get the blade off his back, his arms too short to properly do it, and once he draws Ragnell, he does a series of strikes.

His form is good. His hands and wrists are strong, although his arms shake with the weight of the blade one-handed. He’s not nearly good enough for that yet, but chances are he never saw Ike use Ragnell any other way, since Ike and Zelgius both trained with Gawain, who preferred two-handed strikes only for the force. Priam isn’t distracted; he focuses on what he’s doing, but he has no endurance. No finesse. All his strikes are wide and wild, wavering back and forth all over the place. He needs more muscle, more balance.

“Stop,” Zelgius calls, after he’s seen enough. “Come over here.” He beckons the young man, who wipes his forehead off, and comes to stand in front of him. “Give me Ragnell,” Zelgius says, and Priam wavers.

“Uh. It doesn’t really, usually, let people—“

“It will let me,” Zelgius says, calmly. “I’ve wielded it before. My Lord gave Ragnell to me, and I gave Ragnell to your father.” Priam hesitates, and then passes the blade over. Zelgius looks carefully at it—it’s been well-maintained and cared for, so Priam knows that much, and after a moment, Zelgius lifts the blade up, and holds it straight out in his remaining hand. Priam stares at him.

They say nothing. Zelgius calmly starts to think over the things that he needs to go get from the market at the edge of the forest; he’ll be leaving in a week and taking the boys with him. He considers letting Priam bring Ragnell, but decides against it. He takes stock of his remaining chores for the week.

Priam sits down.

The sun starts to move in the sky. Neither of them speak, neither of them move.

After an hour, Zelgius lowers his arm and sticks Ragnell point-first in the ground, shakes his arm and hand out. It’s been a while since he’s done that, and his muscles ache with the abuse. Priam is boggling at him. Zelgius wipes sweat off of his forehead, and puts his fist on his hip.

“You need to be able to do that,” he says to the young man. Priam is still staring. “You’re currently trying to wield Ragnell as a one-handed blade, and it’s near as tall as you are. Your father and I might be able to, but we trained with your grandfather, and it did not come easy. Until you can do what I just did, you will need to wield it two-handed.”

“So...how do I do that?” Priam asks, still a little stunned.

“Strength. You need to be able to do a hundred pushups, a hundred sit-ups, and a hundred pull-ups.” Zelgius gestures for the young man to follow him, and Priam scrambles to get Ragnell, sheathe it, and follows him around the back of the cottage to where Zelgius chops wood. There is a tree there, with a branch at little taller than Zelgius is, a solid-enough one with the leaves growing around a well-worn spot on the wood.

Zelgius brings Priam over. “And a hundred pull-ups. With both arms, and then with each arm. Your dominant hand is most important, but,” and here Zelgius pats the stump of his right arm, “You never know when you may need to be able to use the other one. You need to be running every day, too. Ten miles is the goal, but that’s going to take some work to get to. While you are here, you are going to train until you can shave yourself with Ragnell—for _real_ , not as an attempt and nearly killing yourself this time.” Priam is staring at him.

“Whoa,” he says at last. “You’re kind of a hard-ass.”

Zelgius laughs.

 

 

They go to the market the next week. Zelgius takes Priam and Grell, the two boys riding in the back of the cart, and Janaff, who is perched on the front post of the cart. They buy most of the things that the people of Serenes are unable to get easy access to, things that need to be imported. Many of the Laguz, at least of the older generations, are still uncomfortable with Beorc they don’t know, and most of the younger ones aren’t yet old enough to go out on their own. So they make due, swapping out duties, Zelgius leading, since he passes as a Beorc.

The caravaners know him as Zel, and he goes around to visit with them, getting news of the outside world. Buying needed staples, grains they can’t grow in the forest, cloth, and most importantly, lumber. The trees in Serenes are sacred, and while some can be cut down to build new buildings, using them for firewood is frowned upon, and Lehran’s weak constitution means that they go through a _lot_ of firewood.

They are there the better part of the afternoon, Priam and Grell helping to load the cart and the horses, Janaff taking to the air eventually with a load of lighter things bound for Serenes proper. Towards sunset, they say their goodbyes and start to ride home, Priam running alongside the cart because there’s not room for two children, and Grell is not in the physical shape to do so. He’s training with Lehran, to be a mage.

Priam jogs all the way back to their cottage, and then falls down flat on his back on the ground in the clearing in the oncoming dark and whines for half an hour, and Zelgius stands over him and says: “If you have the energy to whine, you have the energy to unload the cart.”

 

 

Months pass like this. Priam, eating a diet mostly of protein and carbs, exercising daily, both grows upward and outward, until he looks like his father did at about the same age, broad and wiry. He’s still desperately needing to put on more weight, but he’ll get there.

After four months, one morning, when Priam is done chopping the wood, done with his morning exercises, eating a second breakfast in the back yard and cheering Grell on while he practices summoning gusts of wind, Lehran lecturing him from the back door of the cottage with Levail wiggling on his knee, Zelgius comes over to Priam and drops a heavy stick at his feet, drapes his own over his shoulder.

Priam looks at the stick, and looks up at Zelgius.

“We’re sparring,” Zelgius tells him, shortly. “As soon as you’re ready. I’ll be waiting in the clearing. If you can get in even a single hit on me—“ and here he holds up his finger, “Even just one. Even just a tap on the wrist, slipping past my guard. _One_ , and we can move on to actually using swords.”

Priam practically sprints back around the house, even though Lehran calls after him, “He’s toying with you!” Zelgius grins at the other man, and follows Priam, who is already stretching to warm up. Zelgius does the same, and then settles into a casual defensive stance. Priam eyes him up—he’s not really seen much of what Zelgius does, not seen him fight, not seen him do beyond simple daily work to stay in shape.

He’s a father, now. Not a general. It’s his job to be able to carry children, care for the house, chop wood, care for his often-ill Master, go on supply runs. It’s _not_ his job to wield a sword one-handed, although he still can. Zelgius knows he has lost the definition that once outlined his muscles; he has gained weight, and he now has to work to outline the muscles of his abs. But with the increased weight is its own boon, because he now has more force to put behind his strikes. He’s still plenty fast, too.

“All right,” Zelgius says. “I will give you the first strike for free. Don’t squander it.” Priam nods, his eyes wide, and he settles into a defensive stance, watching Zelgius to see if he’ll move. But he remains totally still, waiting. When Priam finally does strike, a quick thrust in from Zelgius’ right side, the match is practically over and done.

Zelgius disarms him in less than a minute. And they do it again, same result. Three more times.

By the end of it, Priam is out of breath and staring at Zelgius like he just reinvented the wheel. “No sword,” Zelgius says. “But, I think it’s time you start practicing with it in the morning. At least holding it steady.”

Priam lets out a whoop.

 

 

Priam stays with them for almost a year. In that time, he grows taller than Zelgius, and has to stoop to get under doorframes, almost triples in weight. Lehran teaches him to let out his own hems, rather than keep doing it for him. Levail imprints desperately hard on this big tall young man, and as soon as he can walk, toddles around after Priam waving sticks to practice at swords. Priam will give the toddler rides on his shoulders.

Grell and Priam are nearly inseparable, and Zelgius and Lehran often enough look at one another, eyebrows raised, because they aren’t stupid. They know what’s going to happen, but let it happen on its own.

It’s one afternoon, at the tail-end of the first year Priam has spent with them, that he sits on the ground, carefully whittling wth Ragnell as fine blade-work practice while Zelgius shucks corn. Lehran comes out of the cottage, Grell babbling excitedly in his shadow, and sets Levail in his lap.

“We’re going to the forest to practice,” Lehran says. “We’ll be back for dinner.” Zelgius tilts his face up to kiss the other man briefly.

“Good luck, Grell, my Lord.” Lehran heads off, their son waving as he scampers to keep in his father’s shadow, and Zelgius adjusts Levail in his lap, the toddler attempting to “help” with the corn. His fingers are still too small and too weak to be of much proper help, but he’s very focused on it, which is good. “There you go,” Zelgius encourages his son, when he gets one of the ears upright and into his lap and starts tearing at it. “Get the leaves off first, just like that.”

When Levail manages it, he hits Zelgius in the face with the corn. Zelgius dumps it into the basket and hands the baby another ear before he can start making a scene.

“Zelgius?” Priam asks, and Zelgius grunts, acknowledges that he’s listening, and pries a leaf of corn husk from Levail’s hands. “Why...I mean, you and Lehran have children, like my parents had me.”

“Yes,” Zelgius says, and then pauses, looks sharply at Priam. “Do you need me to explain how sex works to you? Because you are _far_ too old—“

“No!” Priam yelps, flushing. “No, no! I know. I know how sex works. I mean, I. It’s not hard to. I mean what I’m trying to say is, you and Lehran. You’re married.”

“Something like that,” Zelgius agrees. They’ve never said any vows, traded any tokens or rings. The closest their vows have ever come are _and you will no longer be alone_ , a promise that has now lasted more than half of Zelgius’ lifetime. “And yes. We do have children.” He leans forward, over Levail, and squeezes his son around the waist, getting a delighted giggle-shriek for his efforts. “Newest one here and present. Yes, Levail, you not letting me get any sleep has made me _seriously_ reconsider more children, I hope you know that.”

Levail is one, and doesn’t understand, and grins at him. Levail hits him in the face with more corn husk.

“Why do you always call him Master, then? Or Lord? Or Sage? I’ve been here a year and never heard you call him—“

“Lehran?” Zelgius interrupts. Priam closes his mouth, nods. “For many years, long before you were born, and long, in fact, before your _parents_ were born, he lived a dual life. You know this.” Priam nods.

“As Sephiran, right? Prime Minister of Begnion.”

“Correct. At that time, none outside of Goldoa and Serenes knew that he had another name. Lehran, then as now, is more a myth than a person. I was a private thing, his trust in me, to allow me that name. And, indeed, it was rank, as well—a General does not call his patron and commander by his name, but by his title.”

“Like how Dad always called Aunt Elincia Your Majesty, and not just Elincia, but Soren calls her Elincia.” It’s seems strange, that Priam calls Soren just by his name, but yet, it makes sense. Soren is a very sensible person. He would probably find the possibility for two male parents running around, trying to figure out who was Dad and who was Father, silly.

“Exactly. There is a difference in command and rank. Calling Lehran by his name was, for many years, a danger. And, indeed, he has not always been happy with his name.” Sometimes, Lehran still misses Sephiran.

Indeed, sometimes Zelgius himself does.

“But why do you still do it?” Priam asks. “I mean. You have children, and you’ve lived together since the wars. So why not call him by his name now?”

“Because,” Zelgius says softly, looking after where Lehran and Grell went. “Because he is still my Lord, Priam. I do not claim to be a good man. I’ve too much blood on my hands for that. Gawain, your grandfather, may have been an accident, but I killed a great many good men and women by pure intention. I am a _loyal_ man, and if tomorrow Lehran awoke and decided he wanted to see Tellius drowned, I would buckle on my sword and do it, without any questions. If he asked me to fall upon my blade, I would. He has, before, asked me to give him rest for a time, and I would do that, too.” His heart twinges for it, though. Every time that Lehran has breathed his last beneath Zelgius’ hands has left him raw, wounded inside.

“I do not call him Lehran because, before he is my husband, he is my Master. He took me out of darkness, and brought me into light. I owe him my life. He deserves at least that much respect.”

Priam is blushing again. “Do you...like. When you. Do you call him—“

“Both,” Zelgius clarifies, laughing under his breath at Priam's nervous curiosity. “Rarely do I speak my Lord’s name without his permission first, for it still pains him. But, yes, both.” Priam nods, and goes back to his whittling. He is clearly thinking over something difficult.

“My father often used to talk about you,” Priam says at last. “He said you were so stubborn you made Soren look pliable.”

Zelgius laughs. “High praise. Soren is far more sturbborn than I am.”

“Well, because...Dad always said that you could have been a good man, but you were misguided. And I wasn’t alive, for all that stuff. But the way he talked about it, he always seemed like he felt…sorry, for Lehran. And you.”

“Many did. Many still do.” Zelgius pauses. “But pity is as much good to my Lord as a drop of piss in the desert. He has lived a hundred lifetimes. He will live a hundred more. My time is limited. Even were I Laguz, not Branded, my time would be but a shadow upon his own.” Zelgius has never, truly, asked Lehran how old he is. He does not ever intend to, for he knows that the past has its hooks into Lehran’s flesh as sure as a torturer’s claws. He has suffered so much already. “Priam, your father knew this, and you should too—I had the opportunity to be someone else, do something else, with my life. I knew the choice I was making when I made it. _All_ my choices.”

“Dad said that you let him cut off your arm.” Priam's voice is hardly a whisper. Like it is something shameful.

“I did,” Zelgius agrees. “A tactical decision. I knew Ike wished for revenge. If our battle was all-out, one of us would eventually die. My Lord wanted Ike to live, so I had no option but to lose. If I allowed him, your father would have run me through.”

“So you let him win.”

“So I let him win, yes, if you wish to simplify it. I let him cut off my arm, rather than prolonging it to a true contest, and knew that he was a kind enough man to not cut down an injured, unarmed opponent. And he did not. And I lived.”

“For Lehran,” Priam says, and Zelgius smiles.

“You’re beginning to understand.”

“Loving someone that much seems awful,” Priam whispers. “So...lonely.”

“You’ve seen Soren,” Zelgius says, rather than responding. “What do you think Soren would have done, if your father had asked him?”

Priam goes very quiet, and doesn’t speak again until after Lehran and Grell return.

 

 

The following week, Zelgius takes Alondite down from the wall. He takes the sword, draws it from its sheath, and goes into the clearing in front of the cottage. Levail follows him, holding tight to Lehran’s hands, toddling awkwardly around on his fat legs. Priam follows, tripping over his feet, still not used to his new height, and stares at Zelgius, waiting for him, leaning his stump on the crossguard of the hilt.

“Kick his ass, Dad!” Grell yells. “Whoop him!”

“You’re supposed to root for _me_!” Priam replies, whining. Then he looks back to Zelgius, gulps. Zelgius raises his eyebrows, waits.

“Are you ready?” He asks. Then, almost as a joke, he holds up his right arm. “I’ll give you a handicap; I’ll use only my left hand.” Priam snickers a little, and Zelgius grins.

“I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, Sir.”

They have sparred with sticks, with wooden swords. With Ragnell in Priam’s hands, and a wooden sword in Zelgius’. But he has allowed Alondite to remain where it belongs, hanging over the fireplace. Until now. Ragnell’s twin glows just slightly in the light of the clearing, and is warm to the touch.

Priam mirrors Zelgius, drawing Ragnell, setting the sheathe aside, sticking the blade point first in the ground. “So what,” he says. “What’s the call here. I get a strike on you, I go home?”

“You get a strike on me,” Zelgius says, “And I teach you how to shave with it.”

“ _Awesom_ e,” Priam says, and engages.

(Zelgius throws this one a little bit, too. Priam is too young, too inexperienced, too unsure in his own body to really have a chance. But he makes it believable, more believable than he made the one with Ike, and only barely lets Priam have the hit.

And teaches him to shave.)

 

 

Soren arrives in Serenes at the start of fall. When he arrives at the cottage by the altar, he finds Priam and Zelgius trading blows, Priam swinging Ragnell one-handed—albeit wide and a little wobbly, successfully doing it. Zelgius sees Soren, and adjusts his strikes and steps, leading more toward the altar, away from the road to Serenes proper, and Soren sits down on a stone to watch.

Priam is outmatched, but doing an admirable job, sweat matting his hair. He gets a strike against Zelgius, who raps him a smart one in return, and then a second. He barely scores a third, and then falls back, grinning. “You let me have that last one,” he accuses, wiping sweat off of his forehead. In the early afternoon sunlight, the sweat dripping down the nape of his neck makes the muscles of his shoulders stand out even more under his too-small shirt. “I saw you make that opening wider.”

“I think you’re imagining things,” Zelgius says, and gestures with his chin. Priam turns, and Soren feels his heart sink down into his toes.

His son is—

For a moment, he can only see Ike in that face, in that shaggy hair, in that bright grin. But then he sees more. He sees Dheginsea in those broad shoulders, the wide jaw of Ashnard. His own eyes, his mother’s fine, narrow-fingered hands. Certainly, the height has to have skipped a generation, for Priam is taller even than Zelgius.

“Soren!” Priam yells, running across the clearing, almost tackling his father off of the rock. “You’re back!”

“You _reek,_ ” Soren laughs, hugging his son tight. “What have they been feeding you? You’re the size of a barn!” He holds his son at arm’s length. “Let me look at you.” Priam is like an excited dog, grinning, his hair everywhere. “The boy I left here didn’t know where his feet are, and now you look like you don’t have any idea where your head is.”

“I grew a _lot_ ,” Priam confides.

“I can see that,” Soren agrees, and stands, wrapping an arm around Priam, pulling him close. “You seem to have also learned how to use that sword properly. I shall have to hear all about it while we’re on the road.”

Priam replies, first, “Well, I’m getting okay at it,” but then _immediately_ afterward, twists topics completely, and says “If we’re leaving, can Grell come? Hey, Zelgius? Zelgius! Lehran! Soren says we’re leaving again, can Grell come? Grell, do you want to go on adventures with me and Soren?”

Soren stares after his son, currently waving Ragnell like it weighs nothing while racing around looking for his best friend, has a belated realization as Zelgius grins back at him knowingly: He does _not_ want to have to haul two teenagers around Tellius.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again dont think too hard about this timeline here

A cacophonous storm is rocking Serenes.

Outside, thunder and lightning flash. Sleet is pelting down, along with hail that keeps drumming on the roof of the cottage. A leak sprung earlier in the night, and now water is dripping in loud _plinks_ into a ceramic bucket by the back door.

Just about when Zelgius had been dousing the candles to go to bed, Zoan had slunk into the main room, whimpering unhappily about the weather, and crawled into bed with Lehran, who had accepted his son without complaint. Levail had lasted a little longer, but even he had given up eventually, and their surly teenager had curled up on one of the chairs wrapped in a blanket, complaining about the noise but jumping just as hard as his siblings did every time thunder cracked overhead. Alina, still not even eighteen months, was spooked, and sat curled up in Zelgius’ arms, and kept whimpering every time the thunder boomed, tucking her face into his neck.

Thus why he’s given up on sleeping. Zelgius is just pacing back and forth in front of the fire, rubbing his daughter’s back, and nudging the coals every once in a while, as the shutters rattle and hail pounds the roof.

“Daddy?” Zoan asks into the darkness, “I can’t sleep.”

“I know you can’t,” Zelgius says. “But try and be quiet and let my Lord sleep.”

“I’m awake.” Lehran sighs, shifting in the bed. “The little ones can’t sleep, so _I_ can’t sleep, either. I believe your children are attempting to drown out the storm. They keep _kicking_.”

“Did I kick?” Zoan asks, voice muffled.

“Not nearly as bad as your brother did,” Lehran laughs. “Levail set a new record.”

“I was probably just bored,” Leval grumbles. “Didn’t have anything to do.”

Zelgius, who is still pacing by the fire, comes to a stop and looks down at Alina. “You awake too, little one?” She’s nestled up in a blanket, a worn one from when Meshina was born that she has taken to like a fish to water and will not be parted from, and she mumbles a very soft _yeah_ that is lost in Zelgius’ shoulder. “So,” he says, “That’s almost everyone, then.”

“The storm is _very_ loud,” Lehran settles on.

“Ashunera’s mad?” Alina asks, very softly. She still doesn’t really get much of what it is that goes on in the wider world, but she knows Ashunera. She goes every morning to the altar with Lehran, and she likes to leave gifts. Very often, it is a nice pebble. (She is a Raven branded. She has a propensity toward loving shiny pebbles.)

“No, I don’t think so. Serenes just has unusually mild weather, due to its positioning at the coast and with the Goldoan mountains butting the western border. Sometimes, though, a real storm gets through. There have been a few in the last hundred years.” Lehran goes quiet. “Did you know in Daein sometimes, there are blizzards with thunder?” All the children are hanging on his every word. “Thunder claps while snow rages.”

Of the three children listening, only Levail has been as far as Daein. He went, the year before, with Priam and Grell. He’d been in the winter, so he was the only one with any firsthand knowledge of snow. “I was born during one of those,” Zelgius agrees. “My mother always said it was an ill-omen.”

“I disagree.” It’s not the first time Lehran has heard this from him. “Good omen. Proves how very little you are scared of.”

“Should I put the kettle on?” Zelgius asks, and gets a muffled grumble from the children and Lehran.

“I could use a cup of mother’s tea,” Lehran agrees. It’s a concoction he makes himself, with help from Leanne, with dried powdered milk and willow bark. His body, old and stagnant as it is, isn’t really _made_ for children, although he’s borne enough in the last century to eclipse any hardy beorc farming family. Still, pregnancy leaves him weak, no matter how much he desires it. “And perhaps some cocoa for the children.”

“ _Yes,_ ” Zoan gasps, and Zelgius can see his son sitting up in the shadow. Cocoa, imported from Begnion and brought by their oldest sister, is a very, _very_ special treat. Zelgius murmurs his assent and goes to the kitchen, setting Alina down on the counter, as he reaches into the cabinets, squinting in the darkness. She watches him with a wad of her blanket shoved in her mouth, her blue eyes tired and half-open.

In the end, he has to light a taper. It is only with the light that one of the doors opens into the bedrooms, and Meshina sticks her head out. She’s only partway awake, her strictly-braided hear worn into muss about her head, and her face is soft and red with sleep. She looks around tiredly, staring at the room full of her siblings and parents.

“It’s raining,” Meshina says, too tired to words properly.

“Quite so,” Lehran agrees.

“I came to rest,” Meshina yawns. “Not get yelled at by clouds.”

“Be that as it may, my dear, nobody can control the weather. We are about to partake of your cocoa, if you should so like to share.” Meshina yawns again, and walks over into the kitchen to flop over against Zelgius, leaning into her father’s shoulder as he gets down her cocoa powder and a scoop full of Lehran’s tea, poured into a mug.

“We all just giving up?” She asks, her voice mashed into Zelgius’ shoulderblade.

“Indeed,” he agrees. “The kettle is full. Could you go put it on the fire for me?” The Apostle of Begnion, who lives in a palace with servants, has the audacity to grouch as she takes the full kettle from her father and carries it over to the fire, nudging the coals as she sets it in. She comes back over to the kitchen afterward, and picks Alina up, nestles her baby sister into her arms.

And then immediately faceplants back into Zelgius’ back again.

He grins, just a little bit, as he mixes the cocoa. Lehran has his tea, so four mugs for the children. He simply sets out a fifth for himself, for water and some lemon. Meshina takes her cocoa without any milk added, a powerful, sludge-like concoction that is bitter and tastes more of grime than of chocolate to Zelgius’ tongue, but she insists is the proper way to drink it. Levail tries to emulate his sister, since she is The Expert, but he takes some milk. Zoan’s is more milk than chocolate, and Alina’s is just milk with the slightest bit of chocolate in it. One the mugs are set out, Zelgius takes a pan, fills it with milk, and brings that to the fire to nestle in the coals, beside the kettle.

He sits down, legs crossed on the floor, to wait for them both to heat.

Outside, there is a thunderclap so loud the cottage shakes.

“Daddy,” Alina says, whimpering in her sister’s arms. “Daddy.”

“He’s minding the fire,” Meshina tries, but brings Alina over anyway, and she curls up immediately in Zelgius’ lap, tucked into the crook of his good arm. Divested of babysitting duty, Meshina just gets in bed with Lehran. The storm continues to blow, everyone continues to drowse, and finally, Levail breaks the silence.

“Dad? Or Uto. I don’t care. Can we have a story?”

“A story?” Zoan is perking up, his messy rat’s nest of feathery black hair sticking up in the firelight, as he leans precariously around Lehran, elbow digging into Lehran’s leg. “A good one? Can it be a new one?”

“About the wars,” Levail adds excitedly. He’s leaving for Begnion soon, to serve in the Holy Guard and protect Meshina. He’ll be going back with her at the end of the month to start proper recruit training. “Something cool. Something _heroic_.”

“Neither your father nor I were heroes in the war,” Lehran points out, gently rolling over and writing Zoan before the boy elbows him in the stomach. “If you want a heroic story, that would really be the time to ask for a story about the Dawn Brigade or the Greil Mercenaries. Why, I seem to remember a delightful story about your Uncle Kurthnaga getting some red dragons to help Ike with a boat. Or there was when your father helped your Aunt Micaiah in combat...”

“Those are boring, and Aunt Micaiah has told me about Dad saving her a dozen times at least,” Levail says. “What about stories about my namesake?” He sounds immediately excited, and Zelgius shakes his head. “There must be _some_ story we’ve not heard.”

“How about...” he says, thinking, as Meshina tucks in against Lehran’s side, a woman grown but still indelibly attached to her parents, her head pillowed on Lehran’s shoulder, watching Zelgius carefully. Zelgius brushes Alina’s hair out of her face, lets her take his hand to gently gnaw on his thumb. She’s cutting her second set of molars, and has been particularly finnicky with it. “Have any of you ever heard the story of how I rescued your father from jail in Sienne?”

“I would say _rescued_ is a little strong of a term,” Lehran laughs. “More like you caused a jailbreak.”

“You were in jail, and I got you out, saving you from further pain. Sounds like a rescue to me.”

“I’ve never heard this story,” Meshina says, leaning her chin on her hand. The milk is starting to boil, and Zelgius takes it off before it can scald, letting Alina climb onto his shoulders so he can get his hands free to carry the pan back to the kitchen. “This was right after Aunt Sanaki escaped Sienne, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Zelgius, focusing on pouring the milk, takes a moment to respond. He gets it all one-handed, and sets the pan aside to cool, takes mugs over to the children one by one, and then gently sets Alina down in Lehran’s arms, puts her mug on the bedside table, since it has to cool first, before he puts the kettle properly into the coals to heat. “She, Tanith, and Sigrun—they were the head of the Holy Guard at that time—stayed with the Central Army in Crimea. I and Levail returned to Sienne.”

He turns, and finds no less than four children and his partner watching him. All of them with almost the exact same eyes. All the same hair, too, except for Alina—she has Heron-gold hair, inherited no doubt from some ancestor of Lehran’s. After all, he was the first black Heron, and now, remains but one of two. They are all waiting.

“You know,” Lehran says, from the pile of children that has covered him, “I’ve never heard this story in full.” He sits up, beckons to Levail. “Come over to the bed, ‘Vail.” Levail tries to look baleful, but he’s too much of a sensitive child still to be able to last, and he goes to join Lehran and the other children. The bed is big enough for four children and Lehran, but not big enough for four children, Lehran, and Zelgius. “Now, Zelgius. Tell us this story.”

“Let me get the mugs,” he sighs, stands to retrieve the two tea mugs for himself and Lehran, and takes a slice of lemon out of the small covered cold box that is one of Lehran’s only allowances of luxury in their life, squeezing it out into Lehran’s tea mug to help lighten the heavy herbal texture and throwing the rind into his own before he comes back over, sets them both down on the floor beside the fire, and pulls over the rocking chair.

“Now, where does it start...” Zelgius muses, taking the poker in his hand and nudging the coals, leaning over to grab another log to throw into the fire next to the kettle, which is still not quite boiling. “Let’s see. It was right after Sanaki had reached Crimea. She told me of what had happened in Sienne, which my Lord had expected, and then requested I stay and help lead the army. I said no, and left that same night with your namesake,” here he nods to his son, “my second, Levail. At the time, Crimea and Begnion both were embroiled in a massive war, both internal and external—civil war was breaking out in Begnion, on top of the wars with the Laguz Alliance, led by the Senators.”

“Senators are a pain in my—“ Meshina begins, and then corrects, “Very difficult to work with,” before she says _ass_ , Lehran half-smiling at her. “I can only imagine how much worse they were.”

“They were very, very bad,” Lehran agrees. “I loathed them all. Once or twice I even came quite close to saying as much to their faces.”

“Anyway,” Zelgius continues, “We took two pegasi from the Holy Guard and hastened southward, toward Sienne. At first, I didn’t have any plan at all, because I panicked. All that time in jail, without the opportunity—“

“My wings,” Lehran explains, to the children. “I wore them bound up at the time, and I had been incarcerated for several weeks when your father arrived.” The kettle is boiling, so Zelgius leans forward, stilling the chair to take it out of the coals, pouring the tea for Lehran and hot water for himself, and he sits up, handing the mug to Lehran.

Now that his hand is officially free, Alina wastes no time, slides out of Lehran’s arm, tugs her blanket from beneath Meshina, and scampers across the intervening steps to scramble up into Zelgius’ lap. He carefully hands her her much-cooled cocoa, and she drinks it with a kind of dainty care that is surprising for the chubby toddler chaos she is the rest of the time, letting Zelgius balance the mug for her.

“So you can imagine my fear, thinking that he’d been cooped up like that. Levail and I reached Sienne after almost three days straight of flight, ourselves and the pegasi exhausted, and...” Zelgius tells the story as best he can. How he and Levail had been forced to sneak into Sienne under cover of night, because there was an order out for Zelgius to be executed on sight. How they had hidden, for two days, trying to figure out where Lehran was being held, and then the third day how Zelgius had broken into the Mainal Cathedral compound.

Carefully, he leaves out the dead bodies. The hundred good men and women, loyal to a cause they did not understand the brutality of, that he had left strewn on the steps of the cathedral. The many he had killed, knowing what he did, to get to Lehran faster. Even though he had known Lehran would be fine.

Meshina knows, enough, of what happened in the wars. Later, if she asks, Zelgius will tell her the truth, because she is old enough to be able to understand the true horror of what her parents did. He knows that Sanaki told her of the tower. She met Ike, and she has lived enough of a life outside of Serenes that she can probably at least understand why they did what they did, even if she vilifies them for it.

Which she should.

Zelgius has never had any false beliefs of what it is that he has done.

After he finishes telling the story, Alina has rocked to sleep in his arms, drowsing against his chest. Meshina is back asleep, curled up next to Lehran, and Zoan is a dark-haired pile half on Lehran’s shoulder, snuffling quietly. Lehran himself, finally, has found his rest, and he lays with his head leaning against Meshina’s, their hair, nearly identical, mussed together. He’s holding Zoan tight to his chest with one hand, his other pressed to the base of his stomach, to the swell of his pregnany, as if to say _please stop kicking so I can sleep_.

Only Levail is awake, watching Zelgius as he rocks in the firelight, knowing if he stops Alina will wake right back up again.

“Dad?” He says at last, voice hardly a whisper. Zelgius hums his acknowledgement, gently nudging another log over to the fire with his foot and lifting it to drop it in, pushing it into the coals. The storm has begun to quiet at last, and it is only regular thunder and rain now. “What’s the other side of that story?”

For a moment, Zelgius considers lying. But then he remembers that he has made a promise to tell the truth in this new world, to serve as best he can. It is unspoken, yes, but it is to _himself_ —he has told Soren before, told Ike, told Priam. He has told Tibarn, Naesala, Micaiah, Sanaki. Zelgius is not proud of what he has done, he is not proud of the blood on his hands. But he would do it again in a heartbeat if Lehran asked him to.

But he needs to tell the truth, because he owes it.

“That I killed nearly a hundred of my own soldiers, many of whom had no idea what was going on, to rescue Lehran, who did not even truly need it. And then, we nearly killed millions.”

Levail is watching him, and his eyes are paler blue than either Zelgius or Lehran’s eyes are—Lehran said, when he was first growing up, they were nearly the color his own mother’s eyes were. They remind Zelgius of Ike’s eyes, that same crystalline blue. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, and then closes it again, and his face goes brittle and tough, like he’s got words tangled up in his mouth.

“Levail, your father and I are not good people,” Zelgius tells his son. “We did not do heroic things. We did terrible, terrible things.”

“But,” Levail looks up at him, “You did them for real reasons. The world was awful. And you tried to fix it.”

“The _wrong way_.” Zelgius sighs, wishes he could ruffle Levail’s hair and promise him it would all work out like he could when the boy was younger. “Levail, just because a wall is broken does not mean it needs to be knocked down. You can rebuild it, instead. Neither my Lord nor I understood that until too late. You would do best to learn to understand it sooner. We might be treated as heroes for the sake of the ease of history, but there are many in the world who hurt for us.” Deeply, deeply hurt.

It has been almost a hundred years since Gawain died at the end of Alondite, and it is at least a reassuring curse to Zelgius that he still regrets it as poignantly as the day he did it, even if he can barely remember his teacher’s face.

“Love us, Levail, if you want. Honor us, if you so desire. But do not seek to become us. Down that path lays only ruin.”

Levail does not speak again that night, but does eventually get up, hug Zelgius very tight for a long time, and then go to sleep.

Zelgius rocks Alina to sleep until the sun rises, and then gently places her in bed with Lehran and her siblings, and goes to empty the bucket full of water dripped in through the roof, and thinks, for a long time, about mourning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this 'verse is probs comin about to an end, but if anybody has any more requests of stuff they want to see please dont hesitate to ask!! i want to play around more in this sandbox but i am very nearly done
> 
> also, just to keep track for anybody who cares:
> 
> meshina -- heron branded  
> grell -- raven branded  
> levail -- beorc  
> zoan -- raven branded  
> alina -- raven branded


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stefan of the Grann Desert dies in the eight hundredth year of the Begnion Empire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a real fondness for confused, left out of the loop, 3rd pov randos who get dragged into wild and wacky adventures with my otps.

Stefan of the Grann Desert dies in the eight hundredth year of the Begnion Empire

Around Tellius, celebrations for Begnion’s anniversary for a time cease, flags are lowered, mourning is put on, and everyone who is anyone pivots from Sienne, and goes to the Desert instead.

 

 

The Grann Desert Republic is a city of Branded, one that has grown significantly in the last hundred years. The ruins that once held maybe two-hundred Branded now is a bustling metropolis that houses nearly twenty-thousand, but the city itself is not ready for the influx of dignitaries that arrives in the first few days after Stefan’s death.

Queen Micaiah of Daein was already in residence, helping to care for Stefan, her son King Regnant in Daein in her absence, and the Dragons of Goldoa join her a handful of days later, flying across the mountains. In time, King Renning of Crimea arrives, and Tibarn of the Bird Tribes, Naesala, Reyson, and Leanne his constant shadow. Skrimir and Ranulf of Gallia, and, last, Empress Meshina of Begnion.

Many others come as well, friends new and old, of Stefan. Friends who fought beside him in wars uncountable from years before. Strangers from faraway lands. Mercenaries. Nobodies.

Tellius mourns its first great Branded liberator.

 

 

General Levail of the Central Armies, despite being nearly seventy-five, is an imposing man. He calls a halt to the Begnion contingent some half-mile outside the city, and calls for camps to be set up for the Guards and soldiers, rather than impose on the mourning populace. The group that enters the city is just the General, the Empress, the Commander of the Holy Guard, and a handful of lieutenants and assistants. They are met at the gates by Queen Micaiah, who quickly hugs the Empress tight.

They are distant cousins, related by their father’s line. At least, that is what people say. And there is some family resemblance—something of the face, something of the hands, something of the set of the shoulders. “I’m sorry,” Micaiah says, after they embrace. “During the celebrations—“

“We have a year,” Meshina replies, setting her hand on the Queen’s shoulder. Squeezing. “Stefan comes first. Has everyone arrived?”

“We’re waiting on Soren; Priam said he’s on his way. Otherwise, yes. Everyone who can come.” Micaiah’s face tightens, and then, she looks away. “Everyone who is still here.”

As the two rulers leave, the General turns to his small force. The Holy Guard is already hurrying after the Empress, two at her heels. “Captains, please see the Empress’ things arrive at her quarters. You are free to return to the company afterward. Lekain,” and here he turns to Lieutenant General Lekain, his immediate assistant, “Please attend myself and the Empress tonight at dinner, if you would. I will need assistance with my armor.” Not a young man, he cannot disrobe by himself any longer.

Lekain salutes. “Of couse, sir.”

 

 

The funeral is not nearly as muted and sombre as similar Beorc affairs are. For Beorc, a death is a sudden loss, a too-short life burned out quick and bright. For the Branded, like the Laguz, a death of old age is something almost to be celebrated. Many long years walking Tellius, come to a heroic close. There is mourning, yes, but a great deal of gaiety, too.

The funeral procession takes almost the entire afternoon and evening, winding on long after dark, to end in Stefan’s ashes thrown out into the Grann desert, his home, to mix onto the winds and into the sands. He will be able to protect the Branded like that, just as he did in life.

Stefan, the prowling swordmaster of the desert sands, will stalk its hills in death as in life. (And, indeed, three, four hundred years on, the occasional soul sees him. A hand given to a desperate mother. A band of robbers attacked during the night by a phantom. In a brief war with the Begnion army, a devastating blow will be dealt by a general wearing a green mask, who vanishes afterward. There is no proof. But there is enough proof).

Afterward, the city returns to their homes, and those who gather in private are a small, elite band, bonded by decades, generations of friendship. Laguz, Branded, Beorc, Stefan’s rooms have been opened to these, his friends. He has no children; his partner, an infamous assassin of wide (and ill) repute, predeceased him by well over a century. Those few guards that are permitted to attend as outsiders to this cabal of brothers and sisters who have found Tellius in their hands the last century stand about, lost, in a sea of faces. Famous ones, mostly.

Lekain is one of those. Posted against the wall, near to the General, he watches the clusters speak. Micaiah, Leanne, Meshina, and Naesala are all in conversation in the ancient tongue with a man, a black Heron—Prince Hinasa, the one and only black Heron on Tellius, no doubt. They keep passing a child between the four of them, but whose it seems to be, it is not clear. King Crimea and Skrimir of Gallia have gotten into an arm-wrestling contest, Soren, the famed tactician, attends Tibarn of Serenes, discussing his thoughts on an issue they have had with fires during an unusual drought.

And, nearest to Lekain, there is an extremely involved conversation about a sword.

It is into this conversation that Lekain finds himself hailed. “Lieutenant!” Levail calls, gesturing him over. “Please, we need your thoughts. A neutral party, so to speak.”

“Lekain?” Beside the General is a man of a similar age, perhaps a handful of years younger. He’s badly scarred—likely some veteran—with his right arm missing below the elbow and his right eye scarred shut. His blue-black hair is mostly grey, his beard similarly patchy, and on his lap is a sword, one of the largest Lekain has ever seen. It’s taller than Lekain himself is.

The other three men sitting arund are Prince Rajaion of Goldoa, and two mercenaries. He would think they were both perhaps of an age to him, near their mid-thirties, but both are Branded—one Dragon-red, one Raven-black—on their faces. The Dragon-Branded holds the sword that is the twin of the veteran’s, slung comfortably over his back.

“Lieutenant, may we have your thoughts? You are a swordmaster, used to lighter blades.”

“Yes, General.”

“Could you wield these swords?” Levail gestures, and the veteran holds his up. It’s huge; it must weigh thrice what his own does.

“General, I wouldn’t have a damn clue what to do with that.” The veteran throws his head back and laughs.

“Ah, but you are Beorc!” Here he cocks his brow. “Stefan was Lion-Branded, Levail. According to my lord, of Soan’s bloodline.”

“Yeah, but that even extra strength wouldn’t solve him not knowing how to fight with Alondite. It took me a solid year just to figure out how to swing Ragnell without taking my own arm off.” Lekain blinks. The holy swords?

“Where are my manners,” Levail murmurs. “Please, pull up a seat. If we’re to use you as an object lesson, then you may as well take part in the conversation. I believe you have briefly met Priam? He was at my investiture, ten years ago.” Priam—Lekain remembers now. This tall, grizzled man, the Dragon-Branded, with the curling scar and the shaggy blue hair.

“Ike’s son, yes.”

Priam eyes him. “You would have been...what, new recruit then? We probably did meet.” He holds out his hand, lets Lekain shake it.

“Beside him is my older brother, Grell.” Instinctively, Lekain holds out his hand to the veteran, of an age with the General.

The man stares at him.

“Ah,” says the Raven-Branded, “That’s me.” Lekain turns to look at him, and sits there for a moment stunned, as the man grins at him mischeviously. “Branded age differently to Beorc, I’m ten years older than Levail. He speaks quite highly of you in his letters, you know.” His hands are small, fine-boned and in calfskin gloves, but you recognize the crackling air of magic about him. “Sorry for the confusion, I always forget most people don’t know Levail is of a Branded family.”

“I,” the veteran says, calmly, and his deep voice is grown a bit ragged with age, “Am the father.” He holds out his remaining left hand, and his palm and fingers are scarred and callused with age and sword-work. His gaze is piercing, and Lekain feels small before him. “Lekain, you said, Levail? Of Gaddos?”

Lekain carefully extracts his hand from the man’s grip. If he’s Levail’s father, he can’t be younger than ninety, probably. He must be Branded. He could be—probably ancient. “My brother is Duke of Gaddos, Sir. I’m third son.”

“Thus the military.” The man smiles. “I knew your—what would he be, your great-great grandfather? It’s good to see the family has come up in the world since the wars. Morality always was Harod’s greatest failing.”

“You’ll like this,” Levail says, grinning. “Lieutenant, tell him your given name.”

“It’s Zelgius, sir. After the General.”

Levail’s father blinks. Then, very slowly, he runs a hand over his face. “Is that a common name, now?”

“Not common, Sir. But it’s come more into use in the last half-century, since the hundredth anniversary of the War.” Levail is grinning, and Grell and Priam are snickering, looking to the man. He keeps staring at Lekain, and then after a moment, leans slightly to the side.

“My Lord!” He calls, and Lekain turns to see the man he _thought_ was the Heron Prince stand, excusing himself from the cluster, taking the small child passed to him by Micaiah. “Did you know that Zelgius has become a common name in Begnion? This young man is the scion of house Lekain, named Zelgius.”

Lekain looks up, and finds himself looking into the face of the oldest person alive on Tellius.

He’s heard rumors all his life. Everyone has. That Lehran, the chosen of Ashunera, still walks Tellius’ soil, although nobody knows where. Or, if they know, they aren’t saying it. But it’s—now that Lekain sees it, it’s impossible to not know. The man is strangely distant, his face unlined but unreadable, his blue eyes empty and quiet. His wings seem somehow faded, and while anyone else so distant, held at arm's length, would be cold, Lehran is—it's almost like he's a ghost. He raises his eyebrows.

“A Lekain named Zelgius. Will wonders never cease. I assume you’ll be saying there’s a Valtome named Sephiran, now?”

“Actually, uh, Sir,” Lekain isn’t sure how to address literally the oldest living being, so that seems appropriate, “My cousin married Duke Sephiran Valtome.”

Lehran starts to laugh, and he goes to the old man, hands him the baby. He takes the toddler, perhaps all of two, downy blonde hair in curls around her face, and lets her settle onto his shoulders. Lehran touches his shoulder gently, stands behind him. “What a funny way the world has of changing,” he says at last. “Maybe Meshina is right, and I _should_ go walk Tellius again. What argument were you having?”

“I was telling these young men about Stefan using Alondite during the battle in the Tower,” Levail’s father replies, and Lekain looks around to the family—he can see the resemblance, now he is looking, between all of them. With the Empress, too. He would have to be _blind_ not to. They are all nearly spitting images of Lehran, and Levail looks almost alike with his father.

Lekain feels very outmatched.

“None of them believe me. Levail brought over his Lieutenant to prove it. _I_ pointed out that Stefan was Branded, from Soan’s lineage.”

“Stefan did wield Alondite during the fight against Ashera,” Lehran says, his hands still on the old man’s shoulders. “Zelgius could barely stand at that point, let alone fight. Someone had to make use of it. I do remember afterward that he complained it was like holding...what did he say?”

“A very heavy gourd full of bees, I believe,” the old man supplies. He lets go of Lehran’s hand to pat the sheath of the sword on his lap. “I was frankly surprised he was even able to wield it, although I suppose she wasn’t really paying attention to her blessing at the time.”

“It would be possible, I suppose?” Lekain says, at last. “I wouldn’t be able to do it well, but for imprecise big cuts, I could manage it. I’m not built for speed, but I can wield a sword.”

“it just seems totally improbable,” Priam says. “I _met_ Stefan, Zelgius. He was—he was barely bigger around than Soren!”

“He was taller than Ike,” the old man replies, and Lekain, without meaning to, interrupts—

“Is there some joke I’m not getting?” He turns toward Levail. “You’re all talking about me like I’m not even _here_ ,”

“They’re talking about me,” the old man says. Lekain slowly looks at him. Leaning into Lehran’s hands, with a child on his shoulders, the father of General Levail, Grell. Probably, if the rumors are true, of Empress Meshina as well. The man grins. “Sorry, I know that you’ve likely heard my son refer to me as Zel. It’s strange, to meet your namesake. I am Zelgius.”

Lekain stares at him.

He tries to find it in his face. He’s seen paintings of the Crimson General before; quite detailed ones. The hair is parted the same, if longer. The strong cheekbones, the sharp chin. Green eyes. Alondite.

“Oh,” Levail says very softly.

“That’s why I find it so funny you’re named for me. My Lord and I were instrumental in your great-grandfather being murdered.” This is surreal. But it’s happening.

“You’ve scared the boy,” Lehran says, gently. “He looks as if he hero-worships you.”

“How many lectures do I have to give about not hero-worshipping me?” Zelgius sighs. “Revisionist history is all well and good when it comes to the needs of Tellius, but it’s harder to live it than you ever gave it credit.”

“So why are you arguing about it?” Lekain looks to Levail, to Priam and Grell. “If General Zelgius and the Sage—“

“Just Zelgius,” Zelgius corrects him. “No title. I forfeited the right to that title long ago. You are the only General Zelgius here.”

“I mean, the point still stands. You both saw Stefan wield Alondite, didn’t you? So then why ask me to prove it, or argue about it at all?”

“Because,” Lehran says, gently. “Because the world is moving on, and even we, who live lives longer than cities stand, mourn and grieve. Without Stefan, the last of one of my closest friends has passed on. It is easier to find answers to remember the past than it is to try and see into the future.”

Lehran, as he speaks, reaches out and brushes his fingers through General Levail’s hair, like the man is a small child, not a Beorc in his twilight years.

“Your generation, generations onward, will not be able to know of stories like this. Those who lived the wars, many are gone. Soon, so will be many more. It is important we pass on these tales, of heroism foolish and brave both.” Lehran pauses. “So, yes. Stefan wielded Alondite. One of only three to ever do so, I think.”

“So far,” Zelgius agrees.

“No,” Lehran corrects him. “Only three.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stefan/volke might be just about the rarest possible rarepair? but also once again rethi is the fe rarepair peddler. they come into my house and gently feed me extremely rare fire emblem rarepairs until i have gained a taste and can never stop the craving.
> 
> still taking requests for these pls toss stuff at me


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, you two can do whatsoever you please,” Soren replies, not setting down his pen as he works. “The company and I are going to Hatari to our next contract with Nailah. You two are only nominally mercenaries anyway. Grell, I don’t even pay you.”
> 
> “You feed me,” Grell points out. “Food is basically money.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "more grell/priam" and "soren" you ask
> 
> why are my hands made of angst
> 
> warnings in this chapter for assisted suicide and miscarriage

The only survivor of the raid is a girl, no older than four. Maybe five at a stretch. Her ears are ragged from being chewed on, her tail is a stump, and she cowers from her rescuers, hissing. She cannot transform, not even when Ranulf slides a stone into her hands, and the terror in her face prevents them from trying again. She cannot speak—the horror of whatever she survived has robbed her of words, and she stares around at her rescuers with huge, terrified eyes, the whites visible all the way around.

The only one she will tolerate is Priam, and she clings to him like a limpet, a lifeline. He’s the one that slew her captors, after all, cut them down, and stood over her to protect her from any others while Grell and Soren and the Greil Mercenaries cleared out the rest.

After they eat dinner, arrayed around the campfire, Ranulf rubs his hands over his face and picks at his teeth with a bone. “It’s been known to happen,” he says at last. “Some trauma locks it out. I knew a Tiger when I was young, he’d been a slave in Begnion, and he was still himself, not feral, but...he never could transform again, after Giffca broke him out. He’d break down any time he tried. So that might be the case here?”

“There must be _something_ we can try for her,” Priam said, glancing worriedly at the pile of blankets that was the girl. “Soren, we’re going to Hatari next, right?” His father looked up at him, eyebrows raised, his glasses slid halfway down his nose. “We could bring her with us, take her to see Aunt Micaiah.”

“While I applaud you for using your head to think your way out of a problem for once, rather than trying to heal the girl with good thoughts and snacks, I don’t think that will work.” From Soren, it’s acidic, but it’s a compliment, and Priam beams as his father returns to the notebook he keeps, journals of their completed tasks, a job he’d taken over for Ike upon his deathbed. “Micaiah is a talented healer, yes, but there is a great deal of difference between the body and the mind. Even _with_ Yune’s help, they could not heal Lehran’s mind in the Tower of Guidance. They simply knit him back together, tossed him into Serenes, and let time and Zelgius do the rest.”

At the mention of his parents, Grell sits straight up out of his bedroll. “What about my parents?” He says, his rat’s nest of black hair sticking up in every which direction.

“About how Lehran healed in Serenes,” Priam says, turning to his partner. “Soren says we can’t take her to Micaiah.”

“We could _try_ ,” Soren corrects him. “Micaiah may or may not be able to do anything for it. We could try asking Rafiel, but he can’t transform, either, so I doubt his Galdr would do much for the girl.”

“What about my sister? She could ask Ashunera!” Grell is getting excited, his voice raising. “I’ve not been to Sienne since the coronation, do you think we could go? I bet she could help! It would be—“

“Grell, you’ll wake her,” Ranulf’s voice is warm as he warns Grell, his tail twitching in mirth.

“Right. Soft, sorry, sorry.” Grell has a hard time with what Soren calls _indoor voices_. “But Sienne is a long way away. And Meshina’s really busy. So maybe not.”

“Did Serenes heal Lehran?” Priam asks him, because if anyone will know, it’s Grell. He sits there for a minute, as Ranulf, Priam, and Soren stare at him, picking at a scab on his hand, before he sighs, ducking his head.

“I mean...sort of, I think? His wings got fixed a bunch, and he sleeps better now. And he can have children now, too! And Dad says he’s...happier, than he used to be. And he has to sleep less.” Soren and Ranulf share a look, a slightly frightened one, that Priam barely catches. He knows what it means, these words Grell says, the quiet encoding. The way none of them say _sometimes, Lehran kills himself for a while_ because the alternative, speaking the words, is horrifying. “But it couldn’t make him able to transform again. But she’s not had any Branded children, so she should be fine? Anyway, I mean, if anybody would know, it’d be my uto.”

“He is right,” Ranulf agrees, scratching the mostly-white stubble on his chin. “Lehran is probably the best healer on Tellius. He’d be able to tell you how to help her out, if not do it himself. And if it _is_ Galdr, you’d have better luck in Serenes than in Hatari, anyway. Rafiel is just one Heron. Down there, you have the whole Royal family.”

“We’re going home!” Grell tries to stand up, trips over his own feet still inside his bedroll, and falls back over.

Dane, the Greil swordmaster, sits up, and says, “Grell, at this point, _Goldoa_ can hear you.”

“Sorry!” He calls back, disentangling himself from his bedroll. “Sorry, sorry. Indoor voice, right.” He slinks over to the fire and settles down next to Priam. “Soren, can we?”

“Well, you two can do whatsoever you please,” Soren replies, not setting down his pen as he works. “The company and I are going to Hatari to our next contract with Nailah. You two are only nominally mercenaries anyway. Grell, I don’t even _pay_ you.”

“You feed me,” Grell points out. “Food is basically money.”

“And starvation is cruel and unusual punishment. You’re only here because Priam is here. If you two want to go down to Serenes to help this brat, do whatever you want. I won’t stop you.” As soon as he speaks, Priam looks to Grell, who grins back at him. Soren _doesn’t_ pay him, it’s true. But Priam is one of the Greil Mercenaries; technically, he’s the head of the company. Although it’s pretty technical, since everyone knows it’s really Soren. If Soren didn’t want them to go to Serenes, he would say as much. Probably at length.

This is as good as him taking them there, really.

“We’ll meet you in Daein,” Priam says, and Soren grunts. “Either we’ll drop her off in Serenes, or we’ll take her up to see Miciah. Or Meshina, whatever. And then we’ll meet you in Nevassa, and head to the Desert with you.”

“You’re a grown man now, Priam,” Soren says, as he blows on the ink to dry it, shuts the book. “And growing more like your father every day.”

“Ike _would_ ,” Ranulf agrees.

“Go ahead. Take the girl to Serenes, and be in Nevassa in a month’s time or we shall leave without you.”

 

 

It takes the girl, who Priam has taken to calling _Rosie_ because he’s a very imaginative young man, two weeks on the road to warm up to Grell. He keeps startling her by accident, his too-loud voice and too-broad mannerisms and constant distractability and boundless energy startling her. But she begins to draw to him, after she sees him casting magic, and he carefully shows her his book without letting her get too close, until one day she scrambles over next to him and into his lap to prod at his book as he rambles to Priam like he doesn’t notice her.

She’s frightened when they leave Gallia, and stares around at Serenes with huge, wide eyes when they reach the border of the forest.

“Heyo!” Grell calls, when they get to the border. There’s a bored-looking Raven on guard duty, currently pecking at worms in the grass. “It’s just me!”

“Which one are you?” The Raven asks, and Grell grins.

“It’s Neas, right?” The Raven peers at him, taken aback. “Good job on the promotion! I’m Grell.”

“There’s so many of you,” Neas complains as Grell and Priam pass into the forest. “How many of you are there?”

“Last letter I got, seven! But maybe my new sibling has been born yet, I haven’t heard.” As they enter the forest, Rosie stares around, stunned, and Grell keeps talking. “Priam’s an only child, see? Soren and Ike only wanted one kid,”

“Soren has always said I was a mistake made entirely out of hubris and he regretted all decisions immediately,” Priam agrees, interjecting into Grell’s stream of consciousness with years of practice, as Grell continues.

“But my parents I don’t know if they just don’t know how restraint works? Or if they’re bored? I don’t know, I try not to think about it but anyway they just keep having kids! My Uto was pregnant last letter I got, but I don’t know if the baby has been born yet. It’s crazy, because my oldest sister, she died about twenty years ago, but she wasn’t really theirs, but well, she was a Beorc, and she was like seventy years older than Meshina, my other oldest sister, she’s Empress of Begnion now which is really fancy, and—“

And on, and on, and Priam just grins, because Grell lights up when he talks. He can tell Rosie is staring at him too, because she’s flopped over where she’s riding on his shoulders, her elbow digging into his forehead, her chin pillowed on his hair as she boggles at Grell.

“He doesn’t breathe much,” Priam tells her, and she wiggles slightly, giggling.

 

 

The village in Serenes has grown from its old form. The original village was burned out in the Massacre, and the tribes rebuilt significantly to the south after Begnion ceded the land back. Now there are a lot of people living there—the Heron Royals, the whole of Kilvas, the Hawk Tribe. A few Laguz have brought along Beorc friends or companions, although not many, and one or two Branded children have been born. The population is still comparatively low to something like a Beorc town, and it looks like a village for any other Laguz tribe, but they are rebuilding, slowly.

It’s been thirty years since Grell and Priam were living in Serenes, but people still call out to them, hailing and greeting them. They wave hello to friends, Laguz who were of their same age when Priam lived in the trees, and turn through the village toward the narrow path to Ashunera’s altar.

“Well well,” Naesala’s voice drawls down from above. “If it isn’t the Greil Mercenaries.” The former king of Kilvas is leaning casually on the railing beside his house, rocking a cradle with his foot, picking his teeth with a bone. Beside him, legs dangling off of the balcony, is Reyson, whittling carefully. “What brings you two and a—“ Naesala pauses, and leans forward further. “Whose kid?”

“Not ours!” Grell cheerfully replies. “Although maybe she could be, if that was what she wanted? Anyway, we saved her from some bandits, and she can’t transform, so we brought her here because we thought Uto would know what to do for her. Is that the baby? Can I see him!”

“He’s _trying_ to nap,” Reyson says, leaning over the cradle. “He’s been very fussy. Stay until tonight and I’m sure you can meet him.”

“Are Zelgius and Lehran at the house?” Priam asks, staring at the two Birds. “Naesala, I like your grey!” It’s come in during the last thirty years, a single thick streak over his forehead, vanishing back into the sable blue of his long hair. “It’s very dignified.”

“Thank you,” the Raven drawls. “I can only hope I continue to age well. Yes, they’re at the house. Be quiet, Lehran has been in an ill favor of late.”

Grell’s face lights up. “Yes!” He crows, and goes racing off through the forest. Priam quickly waves, promises to come back and see the rest of the Heron royals later when Leanne returns, and grabs the girl on his shoulders.

“Hold on, Rosie,” he tells her, and jogs after Grell. He has to go slower, being careful of the girl and without his hands to balance as he keeps the Cat upright, ducking too-tall branches so she doesn’t get brained. They’re still a turn back rom the house when Grell yells:

“Hi Dad!”

“Grell!” And, a moment later, “Get off of me!”

Priam makes the last turn into the clearing. Grell is over by the altar, currently clinging to his father’s back, while Zelgius tries to stand up to get him back off. By the time Priam reaches them, Zelgius has managed to straighten out, and has his remaining hand wrapped underneath Grell’s knees, holding his son up while Grell hangs from his shoulders. He is trying to glower, but he’s grinning—beaming in delight at seeing his eldest son home. “Priam,” Zelgius nods in greeting, and Rosie, on top of Priam’s shoulders, stiffens and immediately tries to scramble down so fast he has to catch her, set her on the ground so she can tuck behind his knees.

“I heard about,” Priam starts, and then stops. The scarring is still quite fresh, since it’s been less than six months since Zelgius lost his eye, and it’s still a little puffy and swollen, the empty socket making his face look lopsided. “It makes you look very grizzled.” Is what Priam settles on eventually, and Zelgius grins at him.

“I like yours as well.” Priam, self-consciously fingering the scar that crosses his face, a long line bisecting his right eyebrow and cutting diagonally over his nose. “Sword?”

“Lance, actually. Got in past my guard and I ducked.”

Zelgius nods. “Well, good reaction time at least.” He lets Grell down, and throws his good arm around his son’s shoulder, leaning into him. Grell is fairly short, at least compared to the rest of his siblings, and his head barely clears his father’s shoulder. But still, they are as alike as peas in a pod, with the same jaw and long nose. “What brings you?”

“We found a girl! Or a Kitten, I guess? Little Cat. She was attacked by bandits and she got injured and now she can’t transform any more,” Grell explains, pointing at Rosie behind Priam’s legs. “Priam thought we should take her to Aunt Micaiah, but Soren said she probably couldn’t help, so we came here, since Uto would know, we thought.” Zelgius cocks his head slightly, and lets go of Grell to kneel down to be about the same size as the girl.

He’s sweaty, his shirt stuck to his shoulders and back, and there’s grass stuck to his face and neck, a scythe beside him on the ground where he probably dropped it when Grell tackled him. He was cutting the grass in the clearing, then, cleaning up the small meadow where his children usually sprinted about and played. “He’s nice,” Priam tells Rosie, trying to nudge her forward so Zelgius can get a look at her. “He taught me how to use my sword.”

“Sorry,” Zelgius tells the girl. “I know I don’t have the prettiest face.” He’s well into middle-age now, his dark hair more grey than blue, with one missing eye and a pocked scar for the other, his right arm cut off at the elbow. Today, his shirt has two sleeves, and he has rolled the other one up to his bicep and cuffed it, revealing the ugly scarring at the join of his elbow where his forearm was severed, a hundred years before. “I’m Grell’s father.” Rosie looks up at Grell at his name, and Priam breathes a sigh of relief for confirmation that she can understand them, even if she can’t speak.

“She can’t speak,” he tells Zelgius. “I’m not sure if it’s trauma, or if she was always mute.”

“That’s fine,” Zelgius agrees. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not an easy thing, but could you come out from behind Priam so I can get a good look at you?”

Rosie, finally, slides out. Just far enough Zelgius can see her, her face still hidden in the back of Priam’s knee, and Zelgius turns his head slightly to the right to get a clearer look at her with his remaining eye. He doesn’t comment on her ragged ears or shortened tail, and after a moment, he grunts and stands up carefully.

His knees crack, and he winces. “I’m getting a little old for this,” he mutters, rubbing the small of his back and wiping grass off of his face. “Let me go get my Lord.”

“Wait, is nobody else home?” Grell says, following in his father’s footsteps.

“School, Grell,” Zelgius reminds his son. “You know, when you learn things.” Grell rolls his eyes, still dogging after Zelgius.

“Yeah, but Uto—“

“Has been unwell.” Zelgius tells him, and gently stills his son just before the cottage. “The scare six months ago—“ Zelgius goes quiet, abruptly, and looks to the girl.

“We’ve been calling her Rosie,” Priam explains. Zelgius looks at her carefully, and then points across the clearing.

“Do you see that well?” He asks. She hesitates, looking over to it, and nods. “Could you go get me a bucket of water? I know it will be hard, but,” here he holds up his stump. “I can’t do it on my own, and I would be in your debt.”

She hesitates, and then goes racing off.

Priam and Grell immediately turn toward Zelgius.

“Uto’s last letter mentioned the fight and your eye but did something happen after he sent it?” Grell asks, his voice a low hush. “I mean, aside from you losing your eye. Which I’m really upset about but—“ Zelgius reaches out, squeezes Grell’s shoulder, smiles.

“It’s fine. I hardly notice it, aside from that I keep dropping cups.” A General to the last. “No. He—miscarried.”

Grell’s face, tan, goes white as a sheet, and he grabs his father’s elbow. “ _What_?” he hisses. “When?”

“A few days afterward. The stress was too much. Leanne and Reyson tried to stop it, but it was too late, and—he’s been ill ever since. He blames himself,” he adds. Zelgius looks tired. Priam has never really thought of him as old as he is, but now, he can’t avoid it. Zelgius was already an adult when he began to train with Greil, which was several years before Ike was even born. He must be over two hundred years old, now, and Ravens themselves are the shortest lived of the Bird tribes.

Soren has long harbored suspicions that Lehran traded something, made a deal, has asked Ashunera to keep Zelgius alive. Priam is starting to wonder if that’s true.

“I will wake him, and see what he can do for the girl,” Zelgius settles on at last. “You two will need to stay in Serenes tonight; I’m sorry. Tomorrow, we may have to see if you can take Zoan with you. Having one less child in the house could make a world of difference.” Zelgius straightens as Rosie comes back over with the bucket. It’s almost as big as she is, and she hauls it carefully, trying not to spill any of it. He thanks her, takes it, and steps inside the cottage.

Priam and Grell take a seat on the bench, while Rosie wanders off to run about the meadow, and neither of them talk for a while. Grell hunches over a bit, as noises of motion start to come out of the cottage, and his face gets shadowed, scared. Frightened.

“How long’s it been since he died,” Priam says at last. Grell stills, and then lets out a shaky breath. Priam reaches for him, pulls him close, lets Grell tuck into his neck, rubs a hand over his side.

“Since Sanaki died,” Grell says at last. “And before that, right after Meshina was born. I. Dad tries not to talk about it, but Levail was the one that found him like that, afterward, last time. That’s part of why he left. If he hasn’t, that means...Dad’s probably been keeping a really close eye on him. If he’s been that sick.”

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Priam starts to say, and then the door to the cottage opens, and Grell almost bounds up from where he’s seated.

Lehran looks tired and pale. His hair, usually soft and lush, is dull, a bit oily, unwashed. His wings are whole but drooping, and he leans heavily on Zelgius’ hand, letting the other man take his weight. Still, he comes over to Grell, and holds his son tight for a long time.

“You’ve grown,” Lehran tells him, when they finally part. “Just a little.” Grell grins, pretends everything is fine. “Let me cut your hair before you go; you look like a mop. How _can_ you see anything.” Grell shrugs, more of his rat’s nest of hair falling into his face.

Lehran has clearly not been well; Priam can see by the hollows beneath his cheekbones where he’s lost weight. “All right,” he says, looking at Rosie. “Bring the little one over.” With Zelgius’ help, he sits down on the bench as Priam calls the girl over, and Lehran leans on his knees, watching the girl carefully. She stares back at him, suspicious.

“Hello,” Lehran tells her. He holds out his hand to her. “Will you come closer, little one?” Lehran has always had a way with children, and she hesitates a few moments longer before coming to his side, and he lifts her up to set her beside him on the bench, and puffs as he does so. “There we go,” he says, after a moment. “Zelgius says that you can’t transform any more, is that true?” Rosie, very slowly, nods. “Could you speak before?” She shakes her head, and he seems to understand, humming under his breath.

As Zelgius, Priam, and Grell stand around like three sentinels, Lehran checks the girl for hurts and wounds, presses his fingers to her temples, pulls gently on her ears and tail, and then lets her go.

“She will recover, in time,” Lehran says at last. “She should stay with Reyson and Tibarn, if they are amenable, and live in Serenes for a while. Galdar will help. There is no need to take her to Micaiah, her injuries are within her, not without, and no healing can do anything for those, only time. But, likely, she will regain the skill once she is able to heal. Go on back to Priam, dear one,” he gently chivvies her off, and she runs back over to where Priam is standing. At length, Lehran stands, tucks a strand of dark hair back behind one ear. He wraps his hands, unconsciously, around his middle.

“You go talk to Reyson,” Grell tells Priam, and hangs back with his parents until Priam and Rosie are out of earshot, and then pulls Lehran into a tight hug. Tight enough Lehran makes a quiet _oof_ ing noise as he exhales.

“Grell,” he begins. “I—“

“I’ll do it,” Grell says softly, and Lehran stills in his arms. Zelgius’ face is carefully blank. Grell takes a few deep breaths. “I’ll do it, if Dad doesn’t want to. If it will help you be better, I mean. I don’t want you to—on your own, if you have to.”

Lehran laughs tiredly, and lets go of Grell, to look at him at arm’s length. Brushes his messy hair out of his face. “You’re just like your father,” he says at last, smiling. “Always trying to keep someone else from having to be a martyr. No, darling. It’s already been done. A few days afterward, out in the woods.”

“Oh.” Grell looks haunted. “Then why—“

“Mourning is just as much inside as it is outside,” Lehran tells him. “It has been a hard few months, that is all. Much like Rosie, nothing but time will heal this wound, although my body is well enough. Please, don’t cry.”

“I knew what I was doing,” Zelgius tells Grell, gently thumps him on the back. “It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. Come inside, and let’s have some tea, and you can tell us about your adventures.”

That’s a little more normal, and Grell sighs, tries to straighten. “Okay.” He nods, decisively. “I can do that.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There’s a light up ahead,” Stefan says, squinting into the darkness, his sharp eyes sighting the campfire before either Zelgius or Lehran do. “Campfire, it looks like. Want to see if we can stop there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> volke is a wolf branded and youll tear it from my cold dead hands. also calling him stefan is weird i keep wanting to write soenvalcke but i dont want to be That Pretentious Elitist FE Fan god help me
> 
> also PLEASE [LOOK AT THIS ZELGIUS](https://twitter.com/jonphaedrus/status/974737680738193409) THAT I COMMISSIONED FOR THIS AU i am screaming eternally, hes so perfect, kita is a dream, 11/10
> 
> also im sorry for the mist/boyd on main i dont love it but jill/haar is the most near and dear to my heart so here we are i guess

Summer in Daein has a crispness to it, the scent of glacial ice in the air, the cool of the breeze off of the snowcapped peaks, that never melt, even at midsummer. It’s a constant reminder that winter is right around the corner, waiting, ready to spring two months earlier than the rest of Tellius. But it is dry, the tundra spotted with wildflowers, and the ideal time to travel within its borders.

But this year, Princess Misaha’s investiture as Princess of Daein was at midsummer, her official naming ceremony and titling arriving precisely at the longest day of the year. It actually made it easy for the many landlocked friends she’d gained during the wars to attend, her disparate family en-route.

“There’s a light up ahead,” Stefan says, squinting into the darkness, his sharp eyes sighting the campfire before either Zelgius or Lehran do. “Campfire, it looks like. Want to see if we can stop there?”

“My Lord?” Zelgius asks. Lehran purses his lips

“If it’s safe,” he settles on. The rest of their small band nod, and they keep riding until they’re within range of the firelight.

“Hail and well met!” Zelgius says, raising his hand and calling out as they arrive. It’s some kind of a merchant band, wagons and tents set up around a central campfire. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, and then he starts.

“Well!” Ike laughs, waving back. “Fancy seeing you all here. You heading to Nevassa?”

The Greil Mercenaries haven’t changed much in the past fifty years. Today they have with them even those who have retired—Titania is a stately old woman with steely hair, Rhys blind and a bit doddering, Shinon still active, Gatrie beside him the same. Mist and Boyd’s small gaggle of children is racing around, and Jill and Haar have joined them, their wyverns flying in lazy circles overhead. Ike, his blue hair silver all the way through, is bouncing a baby on his lap, still fat and plump with infancy, while Soren sits next to him correcting books, reading glasses slung low on his nose.

Stefan has already dismounted and gone to meet Ike as the other man stands, clapping him in a hug. “Indeed. Shall we join you the rest of the way?”

“Please,” Ike replies, the baby slung against his waist. Zelgius slides off of his horse and turns to Lehran, to help the other man down to the ground, before he gently picks Meshina up off of the horse and slings her gently against his shoulder in his good arm, letting Lehran handle the horse reins, hitching them up beside the campfire. “Is that her?” He asks, coming over to Zelgius, squeezing his right shoulder.

“Sure is.” Zelgius shifts his daughter in his arms. She’s most of the way asleep, dozing against his shoulder. She’s thirteen years old, but Heron-Branded ages her differently—were she a Beorc, she would be no older than eight. She grumbles, tiredly, at him. “Let me go put her to bed. We’ve had a long day.”

By the time Zelgius has his daughter bedded down in their tent and rejoins the party around the fire, they have broken out the wine, and he sinks down onto the ground next to Lehran. “Can I see him?” He asks, leaning around the other man to where Volke is confusedly dandling the baby on his knee.

“Please,” Volke growls, and hands him over immediately. Zelgius settles him on his lap, and looks closely; lifts his bangs, to see the red Brand on his forehead.

“Priam,” Soren says, without looking up.

“Priam,” Zelgius echoes. “He’s Ike’s spitting image.” He is, although his hair is darker. He is chewing intently on a stick, in the way that babies do, because sticks are fun to chew on. Better than dirt. Soren seems little changed with parenthood, his usual acerbic self, but every time Zelgius glances up Ike is staring at the baby with cow-eyes. “Here,” he says, leaning over to Ike, settling the boy on his father’s lap. Ike immediately picks him up, and lets the baby settle flopped against his shoulder, yawning. “You’re happy,” he adds, and Ike grins.

“Sometimes,” Soren murmurs, “I swear he loves that baby more than he loves me.”

Lehran laughs. “It is a fact of life,” he tells Soren, passing a mug of warm wine to Zelgius, who takes it with a murmur of thanks. “Even Zelgius seems to have traded loyalty to me for loyalty to Meshina.”

Zelgius laughs at him.

“No, it’s true.” Mist leans on Boyd’s shoulder as she speaks. “When Elena was born, it was like the whole world flipped.”

“I mean, I like kids. But they sure do take up a lot of energy.” Haar yawns. “I think I’ve been tired constantly since Jorem showed up.”

“You’ve been tired since you were _born_ ,” Jill replies, nudging Haar in the back. “Go to bed if you’re so worn out, old man.” He slings an arm around her instead, mashes his face into her lap, and lays down sideways.

“I’ll sleep here.” His voice is muffled, but everyone laughs.

“It feels a lot like old times,” Mist says, leaning forward, smiling. “We’re all so much older, but here we are. Just like back then.” Zelgius knows he and Lehran are the odd ones out, but that’s all right. “Who could believe we’d all grow up and have children like this, and still be able to go out and see the world?”

“Tellius is a lot safer now than it was then,” Titania agrees. “I’m glad to see us all still together, though.” It’s quiet, comfortable in the silence, and the chatter starts up again soon after.

“Zelgius,” Ike says, when Soren has been drawn into an argument with Stefan about something, “Can I talk to you?”

He sets down his wine. “Of course.” He stands, and then Ike hesitates, handing Priam to Soren, and adds:

“Volke? You too.”

The assassin looks up from where he’s been cleaning dirt out from under his fingernails next to Stefan, and rolls to his feet, lithe. He’s a Wolf Branded, and has aged about as much as Stefan has, to look about forty, threads of silver and white in his close-cropped beard.

“Sure.”

Ike heads away from the fire a bit, out of earshot, Volke and Zelgius dogging his footsteps, until they’re past the ring of carts and into the quiet chill of the Daein night air. “Sorry,” he says as he comes to a stop. “I didn’t want to have to talk about this in front of Mist. Stuff about Father makes her—“ He runs a hand through his hair, scratches at his beard, mostly white. “Especially with you around, Zelgius.”

“Understandably.” He crosses his remaining arm over his chest. “I killed your father, accident or not, and threatened both of your lives multiple times over. And almost ended Tellius. So, rather, I think _you_ are the outlier of the two of you, for being all right with me around.”

Ike shrugs. “Naesala sold Reyson into slavery, and Leanne still married him. And, although I don’t want to gossip, from what I’ve heard, Reyson—“

Zelgius clears his throat as Volke perks up. “What the Royals do in conjoined houses, the Royals do in conjoined houses.”

Volke laughs under his breath. “I always did wonder,” he murmurs. “So that is true. Tibarn and Naesala sharing sounds like it would be—“ Zelgius pinches his temples. “Difficult.” He settles on that at last, and Zelgius shakes his head. “What’s on your mind, Ike?” Volke cocks his head. “Something about your father?”

“A question for Zelgius, and if he can’t answer, a job for you. Paid, of course.” Volke raises his eyebrows.

“Nothing dangerous? I promised Stefan I’d stay in Grann until the fall equinox this year.”

“Nothing dangerous. Just some information, that’s all. Zelgius, you knew my father when my parents got married, right?” Zelgius nods. “Do you know where Mom came from?”

“She was probably born in Daein, although not where we met her.” Zelgius rubs his brow as he thinks. “I’m trying to remember...that was a long time ago. Let’s see...” he looks up at the sky, chewing it over. “That must have been...two? Three years before the King died? We were sent to one of the border villages, up in the mountains by the coast. He never would divulge the details of the assignment, but he was sent to get Elena, that much I remember.”

“What ended up happening afterward?”

“We brought her back to Nevassa to meet with the King. Whatever happened, she stayed in the city, and she and your father pledged their troth the following spring.”

“Do you remember the name of the town?”

“Lehras,” Zelgius says, at the exact same time as Volke. They look at each other, startled.

“So you _do_ know about it,” Ike says to Volke, who shrugs.

“Lehras, in the mountains. I was born there,” Zelgius adds, and then immediately continues, “Please do not tell My Lord. I am aware of the irony. I’m saving it for a particularly bad day. How do _you_ know?” He asks Volke, who shrugs.

“I can fill in the good General’s story. Elena was, for a time, suspected to be an illegitimate child of King Daein—Ashnard’s cousin, it would have been. I was working for someone who was working for him, in the months before the Blood Pact was set up to pave his way to the throne. That’s why she was brought to Nevassa. Turned out she was unrelated, and had just been raised in the house with the bastard daughter. That’s how I met your father,” Volke adds. “I came sniffing and he caught me, bought my contract out to leave her alone.”

Ike immediately looks relieved.

“What brought this on?” Zelgius watches the other man’s face as he talks, and he looks younger just from less stress. “It’s been, what, seventy years since she died, give or take? And just now?”

“Micaiah found some documents about six months back. Priam was born in Nevassa, and she had been poking around in old archives when she found something about an illegitimate daughter that Gawain had been sent to investigate. I had remembered Father telling us a bit about how he met mother, and I was able to make the connection. I was worried that me and Soren were—“

“No, you’re quite safe.” Volke laughs. “Blood pact, Ike. If Elena had been a Princess of Daein, she would have died the minute Ashnard invoked it.”

Ike looks a little chagrined. “Yeah,” he says at last. “I know. But I wanted to be sure. Priam is already technically the heir to the throne, and although nobody knows about Soren, I would rather—I would rather not have to have them worry about that any more than they’ll have to, after I’m gone.”

Zelgius sets his hand on Ike’s shoulder. “Soren can take care of himself,” he tells Ike.

“Knowing you two, Priam will be plenty tough as well.” Volke yawns. “If I’m still around, I’ll keep an eye on the kid. Just in case anything like that _does_ come up. If I’m not, I’ll pass it on to Stefan, all right?” Ike looks immensely glad for that, and he smiles.

“Thanks, Volke. Want me to pay you?”

“Consider this one gratis,” Volke tells him. “Don’t get used to it. Stefan gets freebies, but only because he sucks my dick when I ask him to. This is the _one_ freebie you get for saving the world, so don’t waste it.” Ike’s making a face, and Zelgius chokes on a laugh. Volke shrugs at both of them. “It’s a fact. Look, just because we aren’t shitting out babies left and right—“

“Please stop,” Ike manages.

Zelgius keeps laughing all the way back to the campfire.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zelgius finds the footsteps leading into the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a sad chapter! this has some pretty frank discussion of suicide, albeit by an immortal, miscarriage/child death, depression, suicidal ideation, etc. it's also got a whole lot of guilt and blame and pain and self-loathing and grief and mourning. this is a hard one. im sorry.
> 
> im gonna try and break up one sad chapter with one not-so-sad chapter as this fic winds down toward its end. oof.

Zelgius finds the footsteps leading into the woods, and immediately goes back to the house. He finds excuses to send the chilren back into town—errands, to pick things up or drop things off, and drops subtle hints that he knows Reyson and Tibarn have a guest or two in town, so why don’t they go see what’s up with that, and see if they can stay for dinner? He acts normal, and they fall for it.

Zelgius waits until they are gone before he gets a walking stick and a canteen and some bandages and follows the tracks into the forest. He’s not used to the depth perception loss yet; he’s only had one eye for about two weeks, and he’s still relearning how things like walking work. So he gauges distance with the stick, takes care for where his feet fall, and follows the trail through the trees, disturbed sticks and leaves in the underbrush marking the path Lehran took.

It doesn’t take too long to find the terminus.

The cliff is abrupt, jagged, and a long fall. About sixty feet, straight down, into a river valley. Zelgius glances over the edge, gauges the distance, and goes about finding a way down.

He has to backtrack some distance, make a loop, until he can find a switchback path leading below. He takes his time, because if Zelgius falls, tumbles, he will _not_ be getting back up. Eventually, he reaches the gulch, and leans on his staff and looks down at Lehran below him. He is still, sprawled face-down in the water, and Zelgius eventually forces himself to bend down, roll the other man over. There’s mud on his eyelashes, and Zelgius wipes it off. Takes a cloth out of his belt-loops and dampens it, cleans his face and neck, checks his pulse.

It’s still. Unbeating. His skin is cool, his body stiff. He’s been dead a while, and Zelgius leans over the other man, his hand splayed over Lehran’s face, fingertips pressed to his thin, curving lips, thumb to the soft downy hollow of his temple. Bows his head, and takes his time to accept this, as he always has, every time before. There’s nothing doing now. The deed’s been done.

Eventually, Zelgius has no choice but to stand up, to gently lift Lehran, as best he can one-handed. It’s awkward, even though he weighs almost nothing, and in the end Zelgius has to throw Lehran over his shoulder because he’s too stiff to carry in one arm, and juggle him and the stick as he hikes back up the hill. By the top he’s out of breath, not used to this kind of exercise, and it takes twice as long to make it back to the clearing.

He takes Lehran to Ashunera’s shrine, lays the other man out on top of it, his body tucked safely into the long grass, and once he’s sure that he’ll be comfortable, Zelgius goes into Serenes. He climbs the rope ladder up to the houses above, and has a whispered conversation with Reyson, Tibarn, Leanne, and Naesala. The children, who have been _begging_ to stay so they can have dinner with Ranulf and Lethe, are excited to be promised that.

Zelgius goes home, and gets his whittling from the house, and goes to sit with Lehran.

He might not even wake up today. Last time, when he fell in the well, he was gone for almost three days. There was one time, in their old lives, when he was gone for a week. From Nasir, Zelgius has learned that there were literal _years_ that Lehran would lay still and dead and comatose. If he doesn’t wake up instantly, if he forces himself to remain in whatever median world he goes to where others would die, body deceased but soul tethered to Ashunera, Lehran might be gone for a very long time.

Zelgius doesn’t worry about that right now. He just starts whittling, the branch he’s been working on for the last few days held securely between his knees as he guides the blade with his left hand, thumb tucked along the blunt side to keep it steady. His cuts are precise, practiced, as he listens to the forest, to his own breathing, his own heartbeat.

He hears Lehran’s chest rise the first time, but he doesn’t react. Stays studiously still, because he could be back—or he could not be. Sometimes his body lives but his mind is shattered and lost, and the thought of having to care for him now, like that, is.

Zelgius focuses on his work. Another sliver off, and the handle of the spoon takes shape in his hands. He takes the square of sandpaper he has between his knees and starts to sand down the handle of the spoon. It’s a replacement for Lehran’s favorite kitchen spoon; the twins snapped it a few weeks ago play-fighting, and it had been forced to take a backseat after the attempted birdnapping. Next to him, Lehran breathes, and that is all for a long time, as he carefully sands the wood down, the handle needs to be cotton-smooth so that there’s no chance of it leaving splinters.

“I’m sorry,” Lehran says, voice so soft that, if Zelgius wanted to, he could pretend he didn’t hear it. He makes a noncomittal noise in response, keeps sanding the wood. “I’ve been so selfish.”

“You could have asked,” Zelgius says instead of admonishing the other man. He pauses, and takes in a deep breath, and holds it. It’s been two weeks since he lost his eye. It’s been three days since Lehran miscarried, and he had to bury the little bundle in the trees of Serenes with his half-a-world of vision clouded with tears so thick he could barely see. He’d badly bruised several toes missing with the shovel. “You know I would have done it if you asked.”

“It’s not the same,” Lehran says, as if that changes things, and Zelgius returns the sandpaper to where he was holding it, and reaches up to press his hand over his eyes. Lehran’s slender, cool fingers press against the join of his elbow. Of course it isn’t the same. When Zelgius kills him, a hand around his throat, or a gentle snap of bone, or holding his head beneath the water, Lehran doesn’t have control. It’s never cruel. It never _hurts_. There’s never any penance in it.

Zelgius is crying.

They _both_ lost the baby. Not just Lehran. They both have to live through this agony together, and Zelgius has no solace to be found in the silence of death. “What if one of the children had found you,” he says, voice cracking. “Like last time? Goddess forbid. They’ve already seen me riddled with arrows recently enough, heard us crying over the baby, do they really need to see your broken corpse, too?” He knows his words hurt, but he’s aiming them to, and Lehran sits up slowly next to him, stiff.

He leans on Zelgius’ shoulder, and gently wraps his arms around Zelgius’ waist. Zelgius lets him, lets Lehran pull him over, buries his face in his lord’s long, soft hair, and cries. Their fingers are tangled together, unknowable knots, and he _aches_ inside. He’s been full of regrets lately. It’s an unavoidable part of growing older, after all, but they’ve been terribly poignant of late.

His time is running out. He’s not young any more, and Lehran’s life stretches on unbroken before him, decades, centuries, milennia that he cannot avoid living through. He will be alone until the end of time, until the seas swallow Tellius. His children will eventually grow away from him. He cannot avoid it. Zelgius wants to beg him to find someone else to love when he dies, but he knows it’s pointless. He wants them to have the largest family possible, to fill Serenes with the sounds of laughing children, but their daughter lays buried in Ashunera’s grove without ever having even opened her eyes. His children nearly saw him die before them, and all Zelgius can think of is another lifetime, when he ran Greil through without even really _meaning_ to, and watched the life bleed out of Ike’s eyes even as his father’s blood stained the ground. Holding Alondite hilt-deep in Dheginsea’s armored chest, teeth grit as the Dragon King tried to rend him in twain, while he could see Kurthnaga still as stone in the corner, face averted, eyes shut.

He sobs again.

“What about when I’m gone?” He asks, his voice soft, as he brushes his thumb over the backs of Lehran’s fingers, over his knuckles, counting them beneath his skin. “Lehran, what’s going to happen when I’m not here to come get you? I can’t—not the children. I don’t. The idea of you laying there, alone, until someone notices you’re gone—“ He wants to pound the grond beneath them, rouse Ashunera in her shrine, and _demand_ she let Lehran rest. Hasn’t he lived long enough? Hasn’t he suffered enough? Can’t he die? It’s all he wants—

“I don’t know,” Lehran murmurs. Zelgius turns slightly, presses the blind side of his face against the top of Lehran’s head, and stares out at the clearing, pulls him closer, his narrow shoulders collapsing in as he tucks himself into Zelgius’ hold. “I suppose I’ll go on like I did before, and hope.”

“I hate it.” Zelgius says it, his anger hot in his throat. He swallows it down with the lump from crying. He lets out a slow breath. “I just want you to be happy. Sometimes it feels like I can’t even manage that much. If I could make you happy and safe, then you wouldn’t have to kill yourself.”

“How many times have I killed myself since we met?” Lehran asks, shifting in his arms, straightening his back, cupping Zelgius’ cheeks in his hands, thumb brushing over the scar that twists the lid of his missing eye. Zelgius stills. “What—six, now? In over a hundred years? That’s the fewest since I lost my birthright. It used to be daily.”

“It shouldn’t have to be at _all_.” The vehemency in his voice surprises even Zelgius, and he takes Lehran’s hand in his own, pulls him closer again, lifts him until Lehran is on his lap, until they are so tangled he forgets where he starts and Lehran ends. “You should be able to live every day, not hating being who you are.” He lets out a shaking breath.

“I don’t,” Lehran whispers. “Not any more. Not as long as you’re here.”

“Lehran?”

“Mmm?”

“Will this ever stop being fucking terrible?”

“No. Probably not.” Lehran leans on his shoulder, his fingers tracing the line of the scar across Zelgius’ chest, from where Ike cut the Black Knight’s armor almost in twain. “But this grief will recede for both of us. We will have more children.”

“Not right away,” Zelgius says. “I need some time still, I think.”

“Had you picked out a name for her?” Lehran asks, like it’s a secret. “I hadn’t—wanted to. I wanted it to be a surprise."

“Mihcah.” Saying it aloud somehow gives it power, and Zelgius has to take a moment, to regain his composure. “Another M, since I had a feeling she was going to be Heron-Branded, and ihcah, since...” _Ihcah_ , the word for eight in the ancient tongue. “I was seventy-eight when we met.”

“Mihcah,” Lehran tastes it on his tongue. “We should make her a marker.” Zelgius nods. They go quiet, holding one another, just trying to find some kind of grounding when their whole lives have fallen apart again. “Are the children in town?”

“Annoying Ranulf and Lethe at dinner, no doubt.”

“Do they know?”

“No.” Lehran sighs in relief. “They didn’t see you’d left.” Lehran nods, and they go quiet again, and Zelgius watches the sunset over the treetops, listens to the woods and the forest and the distant rustle of wings in the trees as Birds take off and land. He listens to Lehran’s heartbeat, high and fast in his throat, like a bird. Zelgius holds him tight and close, terrified to let go of him, to lose him.

“I think about it sometimes,” Lehran says, mumbling it into his collarbones. “When I promised Ashunera, two thousand years ago, that I would remain by her side for eternity or until she no longer wanted my presence. I used to hate it—regret it. I wished I had been able to die as soon as I lost Altina. But...” He goes quiet, and Zelgius waits, patient. Whatever words that are trapped between his teeth, Zelgius can taste the palpability of it. The secret, the longing. “I would do it again, because in the end, I found you.”

And Zelgius kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> i should also note that this is the au where lehran is afab and he and zelgius go on to have about a trillion blue-haired branded children and basically repopulate tellius with their brats. dozens. dozens of brats. for like 200 years. one of them is the future empress of begnion. its chaos. chaos of babies.
> 
> dont @ me i love happily ever after with kids
> 
> tumblr and twitter @ jonphaedrus


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